Public services still pain in the proverbial for many citizens
Despite the efforts of reformers, public service institutions in the country are generally still in bad shape, with many taxpayers frustrated at services that are often patchy, bureaucratic and graft-riddled. There is some hope, however, that things here will improve, following commitments from several regional administrations and service providers to adopt good governance practices. The Jakarta Post's Sjofiardi Bachyul, Fadli, Indra Harsaputra and Yuli Tri Suwarni examine this issue in this special report presented to readers in conjunction with National Public Service Day on Saturday.
Mawar Melati, a graduate of a senior high school in Batam, had to work hard to get a new identity card and a letter proving she had a clean criminal record so she could apply for a job.
The procedure was time consuming -- it took two weeks to apply for a simple identity card, the staff were largely unhelpful and to top it off, the services were expensive.
The card finally issued by Lubuk Baja regional government cost her Rp 300,000 (US$30), 10 times more than its "official" rate. For the letter of clean record, meanwhile, she had to pay Rp 20,000 to the police officer, despite the service supposedly being "free".
"I had no choice but to follow the 'rules'," she said.
For Nurlinda, 24, from Cicadas, Bandung, the problem was the water, or more specifically, the lack of it.
Part of one of 143,000 families in Bandung city that subscribe to the PDAM water company, Nurlinda says she has grown extremely tired of having her baths run dry in midstream by water cuts, which sometimes last for up to a week, forcing her family to shell out more money to buy outside water.
Mawar and Nurlinda are two of millions of consumers in this country that usually suffer poor services from government entities in silence. Politicians, meanwhile, make a bigger noise, often paying lip-service to anticorruption drives, accomplishing little and then passing the buck when it is pointed out to them that nothing has changed.
When asked about services in his area, Batam city councillor Yudi Kurnain said that the council had done its best to push the central government to reform the bureaucracy, but all its efforts had fallen on deaf ears.
Agus Fajri, the chairman of the National Movement for Corruption Eradication, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Batam, said that public services were still mired in graft, with people frequently complaining about the high costs of birth licenses, identity cards and passports.
"The anti-corruption and good governmence launched campaign by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has not benefited people at large. The cost to get passports, driving license and identity card is still expensive. Government officials apparently apply the principle: If the affair can be made difficult, why it should it be easy and cheap," Agus said.
However, if we believe one public services provider, Nurlinda's water problem should now be a thing of the past.
Bandung PDAM chief Maman Budiman said that the company had made significant efforts to improving its public services, which culminated in the establishment of a 24-hour faults service three months ago. Every fault reported by telephone was now personally received by an employee, he claimed, with PDAM technicians quickly dispatched to fix the problem.
The Sidoarjo Regency, meanwhile, has established an information and communication post that allows residents to lodge complaints about its public services, with council departments processing them "as soon as possible".
The post has been operational since February, was open 24- hours and had already benefited residents, Syamsul Hadi, a post official, said.
Two weeks ago, a patient at a government hospital called the post and complained that the hospital service was awful, Syamsul said. The employee at the post sent a short messaging system (sms) to a hospital official and the hospital management apologized for the service and promised to do better in future.
While apologies and pledges may not fix past wrongs, they are at least a sign that people's concerns are being listened to, and many Sidoarjo residents are positive about the changes in their regency.
A home to 1.6 million people, the region has twice won the Jawa Pos Autonomy Award in 2004 and 2005 for excellent public services. In March this year, the Sidoarjo government also won an ISO 9000 award for the similar category.
Kukuh, a local journalist, acknowledged that public services in the regency were now carried out quickly and efficiently. While it took many days for residents in other regencies to get the driving licenses, in Sidoarjo, it took only three hours, Kukuh said.
Similar improvements have also been seen in Solok regency, West Sumatra province.