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)