Regional autonomy untimely, says Australian expert
JAKARTA (JP): The implementation of regional autonomy next January is premature as most regions are not self-supportive yet, an Australian expert in public policy said
"Although the central government will retain full authority in defense, monetary, judicial, religious and foreign affairs, realistically most regions and mayoralties will not be able to be autonomous in many other sectors," Ross Worthington told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
Ross, a graduate in public policy from the Australian National University, is here to provide a weeklong training on accountability in public sector management for a small group of middle-level government officials from various state departments.
He said that besides financial problems, most regions would also face two main constraints in implementing the autonomy, namely, the presence of regional military commands and the lack of qualified human resources.
He said autonomy was "too luxurious and strange" for most regions as the government and the bureaucracy had been dominated by the military since Indonesia's independence in 1945.
"With its continuing presence in the regions, the military will maintain its stronghold in the civilian domain," he said, while citing that the history of civilian administration in Germany, the United States and Australia showed that the military must be out of politics and bureaucracy during the transition to democracy.
Although the reform movement was launched three years ago, Indonesia still needs more time to prepare its "software and hardware" for democracy, he said.
"It's considerably too hasty to implement the regional autonomy as both the central and regional administrations had been dominated by the military for more than 30 years, while the public administrations in provinces and regions lack qualified civilians," he said.
Ross said in the absence of reforms in the bureaucracy and social transformation in the society, the regional autonomy would decentralize the rampant corrupt, collusive and nepotistic practices from Jakarta to the regions.
"I'm afraid the regional autonomy will not improve the people's social welfare and public service (of regional administrations) but instead add to the problems, including corruption," he said.
He said Indonesia needed five to 10 years to make the necessary preparations for the implementation of regional autonomy.
He added that while preparing guidelines for regional autonomy in the next five years, the government should also intensify education and training programs to prepare qualified human resources in both the bureaucracy and private sector.
"The government should increase the education budget by at least four percent of its gross domestic products to transform the society, especially the people's way of thinking and their political awareness," he said.
Ross said Indonesia should learn from Japan and South Korea on how they had socially transformed and evolved to become developed nations.
He said the government must also reform its bureaucracy so that in the future Indonesia's public administration would remain strong regardless of any political conflicts.
He said although Japan had its prime minister changed several times in a year, it did not affect its public administration.
Ross suggested the government implement the regional autonomy in phases, depending on each region's condition and readiness.
He said in the first phase, the government should give special autonomy to the troubled Aceh province.
"Despite its rich natural resources, Aceh has many major problems because it actually does not have adequate infrastructure and qualified human resources to implement their special autonomy. And the special autonomy is not a guarantee that the problems in the province will be solved peacefully," he said.
He said in the second phase, the autonomy should be given to provinces and regencies which are rich in natural and human resources, such as Riau, Irian Jaya and East Kalimantan, and then followed by the remaining provinces. (rms)