Regional govt behavior contradicting aims of local autonomy law

Regional govt behavior contradicting aims of local autonomy law

Ignas Kleden
Sociologist
Director
Center for East Indonesian Affairs
Jakarta

After three years of implementation, regional autonomy has
produced a number of unintended results that will very likely
negate its original aim. One of those unintended results is
obviously the tendency of every regency (kabupaten) to become
more and more inward-looking to the extent that one regency feels
no need to consult its neighboring regencies concerning possible
collaboration between them.

This tendency might have its origins in the misperception that
regional autonomy, which has provided local regents with more
substantial power than ever before, is to be understood as
meaning a sort of regional self-sufficiency or, even worse,
political parochialism.

Needless to say, this tendency is highly detrimental to the
interests of every region for the following reasons.

First of all, the absence of collaboration at regional level
will certainly make a regional division of labor all but
impossible. There is no forum or venue to discuss what has to be
done in the respective regencies in order to forestall
unnecessary duplication on the one hand, and to encourage
necessary action on the other.

If I were to speak of the eastern islands of the country, it
is very obvious that the use of marine natural resources by the
locals is still close to minimum possible level while most local
conflicts have something to do with land.

This is, of course, a sad situation considering the fact that
people are still deeply embedded in dry-land agriculture despite
the scarcity and the poor condition of land, while paying very
little attention to the aquaculture made possible by marine
resources that are more than enough due to the archipelagic
nature of those islands.

If there were to be solid and well organized coordination
among the regents, this misplaced orientation towards agriculture
in the eastern islands could be reversed systematically through
the introduction of marine cultivation. Fishing is of course a
traditional choice but marine cultivation will make people aware
that it is not only the land that can be cultivated, but also the
sea.

Besides that, there is a propensity among the regents which
can be called "container tendency". This means, each regent wants
to have everything done or established in his or her regency, be
it agriculture, trade, banking, airports, container harbors, or
institutions of higher learning.

This should be prevented because of two obvious reasons.
First, it is not necessary, and second, it is also impossible. It
is impossible for a regency the islands of Flores, Timor, Sumba,
Ternate, or Buru (whose populations are on average less than 1.5
million), for example, to become at the same time main producers
of agricultural produce, service economy centers, higher
education centers, and telecommunications centers.

It is not necessary because a container harbor would perhaps
be more than enough for the whole island, or even the whole
province. It is also impossible because human resources are far
from enough to run even one single university for the whole
island in order to meet minimum academic requirements and produce
qualified graduates.

As a consequence, there should be a regional division of labor
among the regencies whereby a regency which is suitable for
agriculture must not have pretensions of becoming a center for
telecommunications should it be isolated and lack the necessary
human resources.

In the same vein, another regency that has more educated
people capable of running a local university must not force
itself to become a producer of agricultural produce, something
which might be very difficult for the regency concerned due to
its lack of fertile land. The question is of course: how to
coordinate such a division of labor among the regents, who tend
to believe that such a division of labor will only lessen their
own autonomy?

In order to answer such a question satisfactorily one has to
refer back to the original aim of regional autonomy. This new
policy is explicitly intended to reduce political centralism and
economic concentration in the central government as a product of
the New Order government, while at the same time encouraging
politically responsible local government through providing local
governments with more powers.

The double goal of regional autonomy is well reflected in Law
No. 22/1999 and Law No. 25/1999. The democratizing effects of
these two laws arise from their desire to create political
balance between central and regional governments by means of
giving the regencies more substantial autonomy to take care of
themselves, as well as to push for financial balance between the
national economy and regional economies by means of creating a
fairer apportionment of the revenues originating from the
exploitation of natural resources as well as taxation.

It is clearly assumed that in order to build up solid regional
autonomy, more cooperation at regional level is badly needed.
This turns out not to be the case. By contrast, every regent
wants to have his or her own access to departments in Jakarta to
encourage the working of corresponding sectors at regency level.

This means in settling agricultural problems in Central Timor,
for example, the regent from Southern Central Timor (TTS) tends
to come to Jakarta to the department which is in charge of
agriculture, before talking to the regent of Northern Central
Timor (TTU) as to how to arrange cooperation and the division of
labor between the two neighboring regencies in agricultural
matters.

The same can said of fishing, transportation, transmigration,
housing, water supplies and education. So far, there seems to be
no legal provision or political decision that necessitates
regional collaboration among the regencies. As a result, there is
a sort of concentric movement from the regions to Jakarta.

If this tendency is not reduced and if no initiatives are
taken to encourage more horizontal coordination and cooperation
among the regencies, an unexpected consequence of regional
autonomy might well come to pass, namely, the political
centralism of the Jakarta government will be unwittingly restored
by the local governments who behave in a misconceived manner
based on the powers provided to them by regional autonomy.

As a general rule we can say that the there is a direct
correlation between horizontal coordination at the local level
and the reduction or the strengthening once more of political
dependence on the central government. The more regional
coordination and collaboration can be organized the less the
political centralism of Jakarta will be, and the less regional
coordination and cooperation that is initiated the more likely
political centralism will come back.

Thus, it is ironic to find that regional autonomy, which was
designed to reduce political centralism, could eventually restore
centralism owing to the contradictions between the spirit of the
law and the political behavior of regional governments.