Suggestions to Habibie

Suggestions to Habibie

From Sinar Pagi

Mr. Habibie, your government has been running for over three
months. Things, however, have gone from bad to worse. Common
people can hardly afford to buy the nine basic necessities, the
rate of unemployment continues to rise and this country has now
found itself in the category of poor nations. In the meantime,
political buffoons, who have never experienced the difficulty of
not being able to afford the basic necessities, are busy
establishing new parties.

So, allow me to suggest the following to help us all get out
of this quandary:

1. The action program of this Reform and Development Cabinet must
prioritize large-scale agricultural intensification and
expansion, particularly concerning paddy, corn and soybean. Laid-
off workers, and university graduates looking for a job, must be
mobilized to open up idle plots of land across the country. A
drive for self-sufficiency in food must again be launched,
involving all government agencies and the people at large. The
construction of car and aircraft plants must be postponed so that
more of the state's budget may be allocated to agricultural
intensification. This nation can never get out of poverty if it
continues to import rice, especially considering that the money
to import the rice comes from foreign loans.

2. Any system adopted to overcome this monetary crisis will
simply come to naught if corruption is still rife. So, Mr.
Habibie, you must have the courage to take firm action and punish
those engaged in practices of corruption. All government
officials -- from the central level all the way down to the
village level -- must be discharged from their jobs if they are
found to be involved in practices of corruption. Their assets,
acquired through corruption, must be confiscated. Those involved
in large-scale corruption must be put in jail. Mr. Habibie, the
only cure for the corruption, collusion and nepotism that has
seriously contaminated this nation is dismissal from position,
confiscation of assets and imprisonment of anyone found guilty of
such crimes.

3. As President, you must be fair to all. If you receive guests,
you must not hug only one of them, along with cheek-to-cheek
greetings, and simply shake hands with the rest. If, for example,
you do this to Soerjadi, the others will hate you. It means that
there are favorite children.

4. Mr. Habibie, you need to restrain yourself from awarding
tokens of honor to your assistants, and, much worse, to your own
wife and younger brother.

If you can successfully implement the four suggestions above,
it is very likely that you may stand a chance of being elected
president in the session of the People's Consultative Assembly
resulting from the coming general election.

H. GAZALI ABBAS

Padang, West Sumatra