Siswono installs new director generals
Siswono installs new director generals
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo revamped his office yesterday by installing three director generals and 25 other senior officials to (better aid) meet the increasing challenges in the government's resettlement program.
Under the restructuring, Siswono created a third directorate general in his office, splitting the previous Directorate General of Mobilization and Supervision into two.
The minister installed Soekamto as director general of mobilization and placement. Soekamto was previously head of the ministry's personnel department.
Widarbo Roeslan, previously director general of housing and environment, was installed as director general of settlement.
Wibowo, previously director general of mobilization and community guidance, was appointed director general of community guidance.
The Directorate General of Mobilization and Placement is expected to promote the self-sponsored/self-reliant transmigration program, particularly to the people of Java, Madura, Bali and Nusa Tenggara, Siswono said.
The agency's task will be to mobilize people from those areas and move them to eastern Indonesia to create a more even distribution of the population, he said.
The Ministry of Transmigration is responsible for carrying out the government's ambitious program of resettling as many people as possible from overcrowded Java and Bali to other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. About two-thirds of Indonesia's 195 million people live on Java and nearby Madura and Bali.
The creation of three directorate generals will allow each one to concentrate on its respective tasks and meet the government's targets, Siswono said.
"We have three more months before the end of the 1995/1996 fiscal year," he said, adding that the ministry, by the end of December, had not even fulfilled two-thirds of this year's targets.
Siswono named the self-sponsored/self-reliant program as one of the transmigration programs that has fallen short of its target, successfully moving only 29 percent of the 27,000 families it hoped to relocate during the 12-month period.
Siswono said the government's transmigration program has been undermined by the reluctance of the people, especially the Javanese, to move. "It is difficult to move Javanese from their land. Those who are willing are only prepared to go as far as Sumatra," he said.
The government has been campaigning for people to move to the eastern provinces, where land is more plentiful compared to Sumatra. (01)