Not advise, but action

What the new government urgently and badly needs in coping with the most pressing economic problems is not advice, but effective, hands-on management by the chief executive. Hence, whatever may be the format and structure of the National Economic Council (NEC) president-in-waiting Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono plans to set up within his executive office, it should be designed to operate like an economic crisis management center.

As a crisis management center, the NEC should be action- oriented, able to make fast decisions on policy measures to resolve economic problems, and coordinate and monitor their execution. So should be NEC's sister organization, the National Security Council.

The rationale is that however significant has been the progress the outgoing government claims to have made in macroeconomic stability, our economy is still bleeding, with around one third of total state revenues going to service external and domestic debts and almost 20 percent to subsidies of fuel and other basic commodities.

With more than 38 million people living in absolute poverty on or less than US$1 a day, and almost a hundred million of others under the international $2 a day poverty line, as well as over 41 million unemployed or under-employed people, there is no other way to describe our economic condition, but critical.

Susilo should avoid the mistake made by then-president Abdurrahman Wahid in 2000 with his economic council of advisers which amounted to little more than decorative furniture at his executive office.

Susilo and his campaign team have rightly diagnosed the country's economic ills and outlined the right policy prescriptions in his economic program. The fundamental issue then is management. Several analysts call it the management of expectations -- of the voters. As a management issue it is all about deciding the right priorities, coordinating and communicating.

Hence the most pressing agenda for the new government is how to sequence the policy measures so that they are politically acceptable, economically feasible and are perceived by the market as credible.

It is therefore well-advised for the new president to model his economic council on the powerful NEC at the American president's executive office, which is in charge of coordinating the making and implementation of policies and monitoring their execution.

The people expect concrete, quick results, however small they may initially be. An early harvest could become a confidence- building block for other more difficult measures.

This should be the role of the NEC Susilo will personally chair. This council should function as a nerve center or an operation room where economics ministers, top bureaucrats, analysts and leaders of business associations, discuss concerted efforts to fix economic problems.

Far from being perfunctory, a NEC meeting should run as a brain-storming session that brings the country's political leadership face-to-face with representatives of the main economic agents, all bent on translating the political resolve into real action by the bureaucracy and the business community.

Any issues such as barriers to international trade and new investment such as credit financing, port clearance, imports of inputs, tax assessment should be settled at the highest leveln and immediately. The president's personal presence at every NEC meeting will keep all officials on their toes because they have to be ready with answers to any questions the president will ask.

The brain-storming conference will make action more important than bureaucratic procedures and rigidities, resolving problems by executive fiat on the spot. The fundamental rationale is that a critical condition, like the current economic situation which is bleeding the country dry, requires truly fast decisions.

An effective decision-making and management center like the NEC would be more capable of prioritizing actions and building up public acceptance of their implementation.

The combination of leadership provided by the president, the right management by economics ministers and the support provided by business leaders in the decision-making process will create a more conducive environment for managing the economy.

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