Some state commissions waste of taxpayer's money: Experts
Some state commissions waste of taxpayer's money: Experts
Muninggar Sri Saraswati
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
The government and House of Representatives need to review
the necessity of some state commissions, whose existence only
serves to further burden the taxpayer instead of supporting the
establishment of good governance, a constitutional law expert
says.
Bintan R. Saragih, the dean of the Pelita Harapan University's
School of Law, told a discussion here on Friday that many of the
commissions had been established to satisfy strong public demand
following the fall of former president Soeharto in 1998.
"The government and the House set up the commissions in
response to the demand from the public, who had been oppressed
for years. Unfortunately, some of them do not fit the
requirements for state commissions, whose functions should be to
support the government," he said.
Currently, Indonesia has more than a dozen such commissions.
They include the powerful Corruption Eradication Commission
(KPK), the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), the
National Ombudsman Commission, the National Commission on Women
(Komnas Perempuan), the National Commission on Children
Protection (Komnas PA), the National Law Commission (KHN) and the
Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI).
Bintan said a state commission must be capable of supporting
the government in executing major policies.
"Some state commissions should actually not have been set up
as their functions are not the implementation of government
policies," he said, referring to the National Commission on
Women, National Commission on Children, the National law
Commission and the National Ombudsman Commission.
Bintan suggested that the work of the women's, children's and
ombudsman commissions would be better performed by non-
governmental organizations, which play an important role in the
country's political system but not the governmental system.
The National Law Commission, he said, should be merged with
the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights' National Law Oversight
Board (BPHN) as both had the same functions.
On the other hand, he said, the Corruption Eradication
Commission, Indonesian Broadcasting Commission and the National
Commission on Human Rights were essential for supporting the
government in combating corruption, and in developing and
promoting broadcasting and human rights respectively.
Bintan called on the government and the House not to be
overzealous in establishing state commissions in the future.
"The state cannot finance them all. They will not be able to
work without sufficient funding. Besides, the government must
stop acting simultaneously as both policy-maker and executor. Its
job should only be making policy, let the people do the rest,"
Bintan said.
Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara, the chairman of the rights
commission, and Antonius Sudjata, who chairs the ombudsman
commission, said that their respective commissions were denied
adequate support by the government in terms of both funding and
political commitment.
"To date there has been consistent disagreement about the
follow-up action to be taken as regards the investigation and
prosecution of gross rights violations, which adversely affects
the handling of these cases," he said.
The relevant legislation grants the rights commission the
power to investigate with a view to prosecution gross human
rights violation cases. The results of the investigations must be
forwarded to the Attorney General's Office.
In many cases, the AGO has failed to proceed with or thwarted
prosecutions that have been recommended by the rights commission,
especially in cases where the suspects are members of the
military and the police.
Antonius Sudjata, who chairs the ombudsman commission, said
that his institution was not being provided with sufficient
funding for its day-to-day operations.