New government told to use IT to help economy boom

New government told to use IT to help economy boom

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The new government must pay more attention to the information
technology (IT) sector given its great potential in accelerating
economic growth, the Indonesian Information and Communications
Society (Mastel) has said.

Mastel vice chairman Richard Kartawijaya told The Jakarta Post
on Monday that the current government continued to pay far too
little attention to the sector, despite its obvious importance.

"For example, many IT projects were proposed, such as the
provision of computers. But the government doesn't seriously
monitor how the projects are being conducted despite the fact
that many of those projects were financed with foreign loans,"
said Richard.

He said that a thriving IT sector was essential for the nation
to achieve high economic growth, as it could facilitate faster
and more convenient economic activities.

"The IT and also telecommunications sector may not be the main
driver, but we're also helpless without it. The main driver in
our country is, for example, agriculture. With the help of IT,
agriculture can grow faster," he said.

Therefore, the new government should consider integrating the
Directorate General of Post and Telecommunications into the
Office of State Minister of Communication and Information to ease
coordination and policy making, he said.

The directorate general is currently under the auspices of the
Ministry of Communications, which mostly deals with
transportation issues.

"Both IT and telecommunications are actually one integrated
issue. Splitting it into two different departments are only going
to make coordination and implementation of policies more
difficult," Richard asserted.

This way, policies and regulations on the information and
telecommunications sector would not overlap and reports on
progress of projects in both sectors could be centralized, he
said.

Regarding the country's low penetration rate of fixed-line
telephones, Richard said that in the future, local
administrations should be more aggressive in proposing to the
central government and telephone operators to speed up
installation in their areas.

"Local officials are actually the ones who really know the
need and demand in their areas ... they should be able to
identify it," he said.

At present, only around 8.5 million people out of 220 million
(or 3.9 percent) have access to fixed-line telephones, mostly in
urban areas. Telephone operators have been reluctant to build
fixed-line telephones in rural areas due to the low return on
investment.

The government is trying to install fixed lines in the rural
areas under the Universal Service Obligations (USO) scheme, which
aims to provide each of the country's villages with at least one
phone line.

Cellular and fixed-wireless telephone systems, however, have
been experiencing robust growth over the past few years, with
subscription currently standing at about 23 million or 10.4
percent of the population.

The Association of Cellular Operators has predicted the number
of cellular subscribers would rise to 28 million next year and 65
million by 2007.

Several experts, including the Indonesian Telecommunications
Regulatory Body, have suggested the government review the duopoly
in the telecommunications sector as the system was not successful
in boosting the penetration rate, and instead it should encourage
new players to enter the market.

Under the current system, only PT Telkom and PT Indosat have
the rights to provide fixed-line local, long-distance,
international phone services.