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