Tangerang has yet to see autonomy law implemented

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang, Banten

Regional autonomy, which has technically been a part of the law since 2000, has yet to bear fruit in Tangerang municipality which will celebrate its 10th anniversary on Feb. 28.

The Law No. 22/1999 on regional autonomy addresses the importance of establishing good local governance, which will in turn improve the people's welfare in respective regions and provide better transparency as well as better services to the public.

But under the leadership of Mayor M. Thamrin, the Tangerang municipality has failed to show much achievement as required in the law.

Ibnu Jandi, director of the Institute for Public Policy Assessment (LKP), a local watchdog dealing with the assessment of the administration's performance, said Thamrin, the mayor since 1998, had failed to fulfill the objectives on the implementation of regional autonomy.

"Did the administration repair damaged roads, build permanent road access into villages across the municipality, renovate damaged school buildings, repair street lights, improve traditional markets, bus terminals, slum villages, parks or tackle traffic chaos? I see no evidence," he said.

After researching the allocations of the administration's 2002 annual budget, Jandi claimed he had found that more than Rp 50 billion (US$5.5 million) allocated for 14 development projects in the municipality had been misused and that the projects were not completed. The 2002 budget was set at Rp 326 billion.

"Many budgeted programs were not completed, nor accounted for. And some of them had even been budgeted twice under routine expenses," he said.

Jandi cited the Rp 1.4 billion funds for an urban innovation management project, another Rp 100 million for a bylaw dissemination program, Rp 600 million just for the meetings on the city's spatial plan, Rp 200 million for the establishment of a regional development program (Properda), another Rp 200 million for the administration's development control, Rp 50 million for monitoring activities, another Rp 50 million for regional development planning, Rp 150 million for public facility development projects and Rp 500 million for the support of political parties.

In addition to allocating Rp 350 million for the purchase of equipment for the city's tap water company (PDAM), the administration also double-allocated a fund worth Rp 224.2 million to purchase furniture for PDAM, he said.

The purchase of furniture should have only been budgeted under the routine expenses of the company, but it was also placed under development expenses.

Meanwhile, some 13 districts in the municipality have complained that, as of today, there had been no delegation of authority from the mayoralty administration to them as required by the regional autonomy law.

All districts believed that the absence of delegated authority from the municipal administration to district administrations was based on the municipal administration's fear that districts were incapable of carrying out the delegated functions to serve the public, such as issuing business and building permits or supervising development projects.

Tony Wismantoro of the Tangerang Government Watch (TGW), however, said the failure should not be entirely blamed on the administration alone.

"The municipal legislative council also contributed to the failure. It has approved the proposed budget without involving local residents, particularly public figures, experts, professionals and non-governmental organizations."

Both Jandi and Tony also criticized the construction of an administrative office center at a budgeted price of Rp 68 billion.

The office center, along with the new Grand Mosque and the Cikokol flyover, will be officially inaugurated during the municipality's 10th anniversary on Feb. 28.