UI team to assess governor's commitment in speech

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration will send out an investigation team from the University of Indonesia (UI) to monitor the success of eight commitments made by Governor Sutiyoso in his revised accountability speech in August, an official said on Monday.

City administration spokesman Muhayat told journalists after a meeting on Monday that the team would start their observations this week and would reveal their findings to the governor as soon as possible.

"If we have to judge the implementation of these (Sutiyoso's) commitments, we will say that everything went well. That's why we asked an independent team to conduct the evaluation for us," Muhayat said.

"The team will visit all 42 districts in the capital to witness the improvement of public services as the governor promised in his revised accountability speech.

"And within the week, they will hold a public expose on their findings," he added.

Soon after the City Council rejected his first accountability speech last April, Sutiyoso assured the council that he would improve the administration's performance by making eight commitments.

The commitments were to decrease the number of street people such as prostitutes, beggars and vendors by conducting raids across the capitol, eliminate fees for identification card processing and delegate the authority to issue building permits to each district.

Sutiyoso also promised to improve the service to obtain land documents, to provide better health and burial services, and to restructure the city parking agency and city-owned companies.

The governor then submitted a revised accountability speech, which was later endorsed by the council on Sept. 4.

Sutiyoso is due to deliver his accountability speech early next year as the government will change to a new fiscal year that will begin in January. In the past, the fiscal year always started in April.

Muhayat added that the meeting paid special attention to processing building permits and continuing raids on people with social problems.

Meanwhile, caretaker of the City General Affairs Office, Margani, said that along with the monitoring team, city officials would also conduct unscheduled visits to each district starting this week to complement the report from the UI team.

"Each official, especially from the related office, will conduct the unscheduled visits. The governor may also join the visits," Margani said.

He also said that reports from the UI monitoring team and the city officials would be used as the grounds for drafting the governor's next accountability speech. (dja)