WB urges greater cooperation between central, local govts

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Clarity of functions between the central and local governments, and the yawning disparity between poor and rich regencies have posed a real threat to regional autonomy in Indonesia, a World Bank (WB) study reveals.

The WB Indonesian office's lead economist Bert Hofman said those two issues had discouraged people in a lot of areas, many of whom had high hopes that autonomy would improve their quality of life.

"The law is not very clear about who does what. The law does not talk about the obligatory functions, but talks about the obligatory sectors.

"That gives the regions the idea that those sectors are 'ours' and that's creates the 'little kingdom' syndrome," Hofman said on Tuesday of the bank's initial findings.

The bank has been involved in the flagship study for the past six months, the results of which will be disclosed to the public later this year.

The latest squabble between the forestry minister and governors in Kalimantan over the issuance of licenses for forest concessions is one of many examples of conflicts between the central government and local governments.

Hofman said the regional governments should be given a minimum standard of services, such as health, education and other public services to ensure similar access to everybody across the country.

WB's senior public sector specialist, Duvvuri Subbarao, said clarity of functions was not an issue in other countries which also implemented regional autonomy.

"Based on the experiences of other countries, it should not be that difficult to have a clear division of authority here," he said.

Another issue that needs addressing in the existing law is the unequal distribution of revenues which allows rich regencies to squander their revenue on unnecessary budget items, while the poor ones cannot afford even the basic standard of public services.

Hofman said the study found the rich regencies received general allocation funds from Jakarta, special allocation funds and revenue sharing.

While on the other hand some poorer regencies had no revenue sharing.

The WB suggested in its report that the central government eliminate general allocation funds for the rich regions.

Hofman also added that the central government should reduce its supervision and control over local governments.

"For decentralization to work, the central governments needs to change. The government should be more active, not in supervising and controlling the regions, but in facilitating and enabling," Hofman said.

He pointed out that article 114 of Law No. 22/1999 on regional autonomy stipulates that the central government's main duty covers not only supervising but facilitating the local governments.

Regional autonomy has been in effect for four years, but the government and the House of Representatives have recently moved to revise the autonomy law, mainly due to this administration's pet issue -- national unity -- as decentralization is now viewed as a threat to that.

Hofman criticized the central government for excluding the regional governments in the deliberation on the revisions.