Surjadi revamps home affairs ministry

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Home Affairs Surjadi Sudirdja is revamping the Home Affairs Ministry by phasing out almost a third of the structural positions in the department, but pledged that not a single employee would be dismissed.

The efficiency measures were aimed at increasing efficiency.

"More than 30 percent of structural positions in all echelons is being phased out and all employees from these directorates and sections are being transferred to other ones," he said during a ceremony inducting 63 officials at the ministry on Wednesday.

"All this is aimed at making the ministry more efficient," he added.

The planning section at the secretariat general was phased out while the number of regional inspectors at the inspectorate general's office was reduced from eight to five.

Surjadi pledged that the ministry would no longer deal with sociopolitical affairs and intervene in internal matters of political parties and mass organizations as the directorate general was revamped to be a section dealing with national unity and public protection.

"The present home affairs minister has less tasks because he will have no sociopolitical affairs responsibilities with political parties and mass organizations," he said.

Surjadi added that the Directorate General for Public Administration and Regional Autonomy was revamped to form a branch dealing with public administration since President Abdurrahman Wahid appointed Riyaas Rasyid as state minister of regional autonomy.

He said the Directorate General for Rural Development Affairs would focus on public administrations at rural level, entrepreneurship and applied technology in rural areas.

He said several positions in the research and development planning and training sections and in the secretariat general at the General Election Commission were also phased out.

Surjadi also said the ministry's reorganization was in line with the upcoming implementation of regional autonomy.

He said as a result of the regional autonomy the ministry was decentralizing a major part, or about 60 percent, of its authority to provinces and regencies. (rms)