Official concedes corruption cases smear government image

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Administrative Reforms T.B. Silalahi conceded yesterday that the recent major corruption cases involving bureaucrats have left the government's image badly tarnished.

"It certainly won't be an easy job to mend the image," Silalahi said in a hearing with the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission II on domestic affairs.

The issues of clean government and public service dominated yesterday's hearing, led by Suparman Achmad from the Armed Forces (ABRI) faction.

The latest scandal in which government officials are implicated is the Rp 1.3 trillion (US$620 million) corruption case at state-owned Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo), currently being unraveled in a Central Jakarta court room.

Silalahi admitted that corrupt practices in the bureaucracy have often unfairly put well-connected employees in the fast track to top positions at the cost of their more competent counterparts.

"Such practices and inconsistent policies in personnel placement make it difficult to create a clean and respectable government," he said.

He said the government has sought to improve civil servants' welfare and their training programs to mend the situation.

He agreed to with several legislators who pointed out that corruption continues because of slack supervision.

"The so-called built-in supervision system is a mere formality," he said.

On another matter, the minister denied reports that the government was planning to shorten the retirement age of low level civil servants. The rumors that the limit will be lowered to 48 have spurred concern.

A government regulation issued in 1979 sets civil servants' retirement age at 56, which is extendible to 70.

"The government has no intention of making the people miserable by spreading the rumors," he told journalists after the meeting with the commission members.

He said the 1979 government regulation stipulates that civil servants under the salary scales of I and II, such as school teachers, may have their term of service extended to the age of 60.

This year, the government has issued a decree which allows professors and lecturers at universities to have their term of service extended to the age of 70, he said.

Autonomy

Silalahi also admitted that the implementation of the government policy to allow greater regional autonomy has not been as smooth as expected.

He said the very slow autonomy process has resulted from the central and provincial government's reluctance to delegate more responsibility to the regencies they doubt are ready.

"If Jakarta and the provinces are not certain that the regencies can solve their own problems, when will the regions get greater autonomy?" he asked.

The government has selected the 10 richest regencies in the country for its pilot projects on greater autonomy. (pan)