Reaction mixed to proposal on deputy governors

JAKARTA (JP): Political observers have questioned the need for the city to have four deputy governors as the municipality has recently proposed to the central government.

The University of Indonesia's Arbi Sanit said Saturday increasing the number of deputy governors from three to four might create more bureaucratic obstacles and do nothing for poor people.

The Indonesian Institute for Sciences' (LIPI) Muhammad A.S. Hikam urged the city to clarify the real aim of the proposal.

Arbi said the proposal contradicted current government efforts to trim bureaucracies.

The government, for instance, merged the industry and trade ministries into one in December 1995, he said.

"Now, the Jakarta administration wants to have more deputies which is not efficient and will only waste people's money," Arbi said.

"I hope the proposal is not just to find a way to give certain people better positions," he said.

The proposal would not help people deal with the city's already complicated bureaucracy, he said.

Governor Surjadi Soedirdja put the proposal to the central government Thursday.

Surjadi said three deputy governors were no longer enough to deal with the city's development and large number of official events.

The three deputy governor positions are deputy governor of administrative affairs, deputy governor of welfare and deputy governor of economic and development affairs.

Under the municipality's proposal, the deputy governor of economic and development affairs' position would be split into two.

Hikam said the city should have stronger grounds for the proposal.

But the proposal should be supported if it was in anticipation of the governor's job becoming increasingly complicated, he said.

"But, if the proposed additional position is only meant to assign someone to represent the governor to attend official ceremonies, it won't make any sense at all," Hakim said.

Hakim said the proposal should be based on crucial reasons, like to develop human resources to help provide the public with better services.

Arbi said the deputy governors' roles were to coordinate offices and agencies under the city administration.

"More deputy governors will not help simplify the complicated bureaucracy because these are handled by city offices and agencies. It will only cause coordination problems," Arbi said.

Coordination was one of the administration's main constrains, he said.

"With more offices, agencies and deputy governors, it will be more difficult to coordinate," Arbi said.

On Friday, city councilors supported the proposal but asked the administration to be careful in selecting candidates for the job.

The United Development Party faction's Saud Rachman said "if the candidates are not carefully chosen it will affect the city's development."

Chairman of the Armed Forces faction, Sumekar KW, welcomed the proposal and the candidates should have a knowledge of the city's development projects.

The city has many major projects in the pipeline including a US$2.3 billion subway project, a three-tier transport system and project to reclaim North Jakarta Bay. (ste)