Thousand Islands may get new status
JAKARTA (JP): The government is studying the possibility of changing the status of the Thousand Islands in North Jakarta from a district to a mayoralty in a bid to help promote the islands as a major tourist destination, an official said on Thursday.
An assistant to the city secretary of human resources development, Ma'mun Amin, said the idea of changing the status of the islands was mentioned in a draft law on the capital which was submitted by Minister of Home Affairs Syarwan Hamid on Thursday to the House of Representatives (DPR) for deliberation.
The draft law was submitted to the House during a meeting which was attended by Ma'mun and Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso.
"The suggestion is to upgrade the status of the district so it would have its own administration. The upgrade could be in the form of a mayoralty... Whether it will be accepted or not by DPR members, I have no idea," Ma'mun told The Jakarta Post.
Jakarta currently has five mayoralties with 43 districts and 265 subdistricts.
Ma'mun said changing the status of the district would be aimed at exploiting the tourism potential of the Thousand Islands, a chain of islands north of Jakarta in the Java Sea.
"Development activities in the islands is going very slow. If the islands status was upgraded, its new image would be expected to boost development activities there," Ma'mun said.
Ma'mun added that the draft law, consisting of 10 chapters and 32 articles, was a follow-up to Law No. 22/1999 on regional administration.
"Article 117 of law No. 22 states that the nation's capital has to have its rules and regulations legalized into law," he said.
The draft law suggests a different organizational structure for the city administration.
According to the draft law, the positions of the governor and vice governors would remain unchanged, but new posts would be added below these two positions. Currently, the only post directly below the governor and vice governors is the city secretary.
If the draft law is approved, assistants to the governor would be added to the city administration.
The draft law suggests that those filling the posts of assistants to the governor handle city agencies and city institutions linked to the technical development of the city, including the Jakarta chapter of the National Development Planning Board.
According to the draft law, the city secretary would concentrate on administrative duties and handling city bureaus.
The same changes would also be made at the mayoralty level. Each mayoralty would not only have a mayor and vice mayor, but also assistants to the mayor.
"As one can see, this (organizational structure) beefs up the administration... it would become more bureaucratic," Ma'mun said.
An official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said on Thursday that by adding new bureaucratic posts, the new administrative structure would "eat through" the city budget.
"Each additional post will need subposts to be filled and new posts will have to be created... this will eat through the city budget," the official said.
Currently, below the governor and four vice governors there is a city secretary, who, with five assistants, supervises the administration of the capital and the city's bureaus, agencies and "technical institutions".(ylt)