Regional autonomy untimely, says Australian expert

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)