State Policy Guidelines obselete, needs update
State Policy Guidelines obselete, needs update
Bambang Nurbianto and Abu Hanifah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The 1999 State Policy Guidelines (GBHN) that the People's
Consultative Assembly will use to evaluate the Megawati
government are outdated and need revising, observers say.
Many of the assumptions used to make the guidelines are no
longer relevant because major changes have affected the global
economic and political scene, they said.
Fachry Ali of the Research Institute for Indonesian Business
Ethics Development, said GBHN was no longer relevant because the
government's policy had been very much dictated by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) through the Letter of Intent
(LoI).
Fachry said that the Assembly should revise GBHN and think of
a long-term development strategy when Indonesia no longer relied
on IMF.
"Over the next few years, the government will still
concentrate on the LoI with the IMF, which is probably just as
tough as making State Policy Guidelines. Therefore, from this
year on, MPR will have to think about a long-term development
strategy," Fachry told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
The Assembly has obtained a lot of input about the national
development strategy, he said, citing one document proposed by
alumni of the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University.
The State Policy Guidelines were adopted in the 1999 Assembly
General Session. The guidelines were drafted with very high
expectations that the then democratically elected president
Abdurrahman Wahid would have the capacity to pull Indonesia out
of the deep crisis, improve law enforcement and overcome security
problems.
Twenty months later, in July, Abdurrahman was ousted due to
incompetence. The economic crisis only worsened.
Under President Megawati Soekarnoputri, Indonesia's economy
has not yet shown signs of improvement. Worse still, the global
economy has suffered a recession following the Sept. 11, 2001
terrorist attacks on America.
Fachry stressed the need to have a new national development
strategy which allowed greater participation of the people. At
present, the development strategy remained top-down.
"We know that when thousands of people take to the streets,
the rupiah will plunge. It will seriously affect our economy.
Unfortunately, the demonstrators do not really care because they
hardly benefit from the fruits of development," he said.
Sri Sumantri, a constitutional law expert from the Bandung-
based Padjadjaran University, said the Assembly should go back to
the drawing board and review unrealistic targets set within the
guidelines.
"We should adjust the target. Make sure that the target is not
too high for the government to achieve," Sri told the Post on
Wednesday.
One of the economic targets laid down in the guidelines is
that the government should speed up economic recovery in order to
normalize the real sector.
Tommi A. Legowo of the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) is also of the opinion that GBHN needs to be
revised.
Tommi, who heads the CSIS's socio-political development
department, said the 1999 GBHN was a revision of the guidelines
issued in the previous year.
But the question is whether the Assembly has the will to
review it now as GBHN will be effective only until 2004.
"Many people know that our State Policy Guidelines are
outdated but it seems that the Assembly does not have a sense of
urgency in reviewing them," Tommi said.
According to Tommi, it is still possible to make revisions,
but the Assembly should prioritize selected parts which are
urgent in the context of the current situation, such as the ones
on the economy.
"It is impossible to start rewriting it all over again," he
said.
Satya Arinanto, an expert on constitutional law from the
University of Indonesia, proposed that the revision of the
guidelines be put on the agenda of the current session.
"I don't know whether GBHN has been put on the agenda yet," he
said, adding that if it was not updated, the government would
find it difficult to set its development priorities.