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.