'Self-government may not foster public well-being'

'Self-government may not foster public well-being'

Berni K. Moestafa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

As legislators consider 10 bills for the creation of 35 new
regencies, 2 municipalities and one province in response to a
nationwide clamor for autonomy, analysts warned that the
localities concerned might end up poorer then before.

Calls for local self-government have risen as people across
the country seek to establish governments that are more
responsive to their needs. But political analyst Andi
Mallarangeng said Jakarta should tightly scrutinize all such
proposals.

"At the end of the day, the question one must ask is will it
(local self-determination) improve public services?" Andi said on
the sidelines of a seminar on autonomy organized by the U.S.-
based Asia Foundation.

The rise in demand for new local governments comes on the back
of the 1999 autonomy laws. Observers say the trend reflects
discontent in the regions over a central government that has been
siphoning off their natural resources for decades.

Jakarta hopes the autonomy laws will keep the sprawling
archipelagic nation together amid the simmering threat of
separatism.

Effective since January 2001, local autonomy offers local
governments a greater share of their natural resources and more
authority to manage their own affairs. In return, localities must
become self-sufficient.

In theory, those that fail the test will be dissolved or
merged, but in practice new localities have been sprouting up,
and more are in the legislative pipeline.

"Centralism does not only exist in Jakarta. There's also
centralism in the regions where certain elements, be they ethnic,
religious or territorial based, are being left out by the rest,"
Andi explained.

Under Government Regulation No. 129/2000, the establishment of
a new local government jurisdiction must satisfy at least six
criteria, including economic capacity, local potential, cultural
aspects, political aspects, demographic aspects and size. Other
considerations may be added to the list based on the regulation.

Andi said a locality that lacked economic potential could
later end up forcing its residents to pay higher taxes, and
cutting public services just to keep its new administration
afloat.

"So don't allow new local governments (to be created) just
because of someone's lobbying or because thousands of protesters
are demonstrating somewhere," Andi added.

A study conducted by the Asia Foundation revealed that many
local governments depend excessively on transfers from the
central government's General Allocation Fund (DAU).

The central government pools the DAU from local governments
and returns the funds based on a weighting system under a scheme
to better distribute wealth between rich and poor localities.

Paulus Kindangan, a researcher from Sam Ratulangi University
in Manado, North Sulawesi, who participated in the Asia
Foundation study, said that the budgets of 27 local governments
relied on DAU disbursements for 75 percent of their revenues.

Local governments did manage to increase their own revenues by
around 17 percent this year, but most of the additional money
came from increased taxes and charges at the expense of local
economies, Paulus said.

Given a frequent lack of economic capacity, some of the self-
government calls may be more politically motivated, said Max H.
Pohan, the director of the Bureau for Local Government Capacity
Empowerment at the National Development Planning Agency
(Bappenas).

He said it was possible that community leaders might be
stirring ethnic, religious or territorial sentiments to demand
their own administrations.

"One may call these (sentiments) a national asset, but we must
not let them become a reason for breaking up (existing local
government jurisdictions)," he said.

"Every attempt to bring about self-government should be based
on the goal of improving public services, bringing services
closer to the people," Max said.