WB urges greater cooperation between central, local govts

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.