Indonesia cracks down on bureaucrats
Monday, 20 August 2007
John Aglionby from Jakarta
INDONESIAN civil servants have a reputation for spending their working hours brokering personal deals, playing computer games and watching soap operas. But if Jakarta's Tanjung Priok port customs headquarters is anything to go by, a seed of efficiency and good governance may have been planted.
Staff are keen and able to help, modern interactive technology aids in customer service and, in an attempt to do more than just preach zero tolerance for corruption, the public are kept well away from big decisions.
This is just one pilot project in a radical plan of Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the finance minister. All 1,351 employees at the customs office were this year transferred and replaced with only 842 new ones. Take-home pay was more than doubled; promotion and pay became - for the first time in the Indonesian bureaucracy - performance-linked.
Early results are impressive. Government revenue from the port, through which 70 per cent of Indonesia's imports pass, has risen while the number of containers X-rayed has increased from fewer than 500 a month to more than 2,500.
Agung Kuswandono, head of the office, says another positive sign is the level of discontent of those who for years have been doing business by greasing the palms of corrupt customs inspectors. "We're coping with market forces that don't want this reform to work."
Almost three years after Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was elected Indonesia's president on the back of promises to transform the bureaucracy, stamp out endemic corruption and improve the country's woeful investment climate, there are signs of success. Jakarta, before unveiling its budget Thursday for next year, on Wednesday reported its fastest economic growth in more than two years, with the economy growing at an annual rate of 6.3 per cent in the three months to June.
But recent embarrassments have exposed patchy progress. An attempt in July to reduce the sectors banned to foreigners came up against vested interests in the bureaucracy: sectors protected in fact increased from 11 to 25.
Similarly, the transport ministry has claimed to be tightening supervision. But when the European Union this summer banned all 51 Indonesian airlines from its skies it cited Indonesian officials' inability to answer basic questions as a reason.
Poverty remaining "stubbornly high", at 16.6 per cent of the 224m population, also shows reform is not progressing as hoped, says Stephen Schwartz, the International Monetary Fund's country head.
Ms Sri Mulyani, who has pushed to reform the tax office as well as the customs agency, is disarmingly honest about the state of her ministry when she took charge in 2005. "The institution was not functioning. [It was] demoralising and disrespecting the bureaucracy."
Reforming it has been vital in the context of broader reforms to attract foreign investment, she says. "You cannot do a package to improve the investment climate if it is not accompanied by bureaucratic reform. It's nonsense."
But critics point out that her initiative is not part of a carefully designed government strategy. The finance ministry is emerging as "an island of integrity," says Staffan Synnerstrom of the Asian Development Bank, but "there's not a central force behind civil service reform".
Syamsuddin Haris, a political scientist at the Indonesian Institute of Science, argues that Mr Yudhoyono bears responsibility for the patchy reform. The president "is very slow to make decisions", he says, and "not brave enough to take risks". Moreover, "most ministers don't take many initiatives".
A package of bureaucratic reform bills was unveiled in July. But most ministers are unaware of their content and they will become law in 2009 at the earliest.
Meanwhile, Ms Sri Mulyani says that despite widespread coverage in the local media only a few fellow ministers have come knocking to ask about her efforts at finance ministry reforms.
"They have a wait-and-see approach. The attitude of as-long-as-the-boss-is-happy is still very strong."
Under syndication arrangement
with FE
INDONESIAN civil servants have a reputation for spending their working hours brokering personal deals, playing computer games and watching soap operas. But if Jakarta's Tanjung Priok port customs headquarters is anything to go by, a seed of efficiency and good governance may have been planted.
Staff are keen and able to help, modern interactive technology aids in customer service and, in an attempt to do more than just preach zero tolerance for corruption, the public are kept well away from big decisions.
This is just one pilot project in a radical plan of Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the finance minister. All 1,351 employees at the customs office were this year transferred and replaced with only 842 new ones. Take-home pay was more than doubled; promotion and pay became - for the first time in the Indonesian bureaucracy - performance-linked.
Early results are impressive. Government revenue from the port, through which 70 per cent of Indonesia's imports pass, has risen while the number of containers X-rayed has increased from fewer than 500 a month to more than 2,500.
Agung Kuswandono, head of the office, says another positive sign is the level of discontent of those who for years have been doing business by greasing the palms of corrupt customs inspectors. "We're coping with market forces that don't want this reform to work."
Almost three years after Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was elected Indonesia's president on the back of promises to transform the bureaucracy, stamp out endemic corruption and improve the country's woeful investment climate, there are signs of success. Jakarta, before unveiling its budget Thursday for next year, on Wednesday reported its fastest economic growth in more than two years, with the economy growing at an annual rate of 6.3 per cent in the three months to June.
But recent embarrassments have exposed patchy progress. An attempt in July to reduce the sectors banned to foreigners came up against vested interests in the bureaucracy: sectors protected in fact increased from 11 to 25.
Similarly, the transport ministry has claimed to be tightening supervision. But when the European Union this summer banned all 51 Indonesian airlines from its skies it cited Indonesian officials' inability to answer basic questions as a reason.
Poverty remaining "stubbornly high", at 16.6 per cent of the 224m population, also shows reform is not progressing as hoped, says Stephen Schwartz, the International Monetary Fund's country head.
Ms Sri Mulyani, who has pushed to reform the tax office as well as the customs agency, is disarmingly honest about the state of her ministry when she took charge in 2005. "The institution was not functioning. [It was] demoralising and disrespecting the bureaucracy."
Reforming it has been vital in the context of broader reforms to attract foreign investment, she says. "You cannot do a package to improve the investment climate if it is not accompanied by bureaucratic reform. It's nonsense."
But critics point out that her initiative is not part of a carefully designed government strategy. The finance ministry is emerging as "an island of integrity," says Staffan Synnerstrom of the Asian Development Bank, but "there's not a central force behind civil service reform".
Syamsuddin Haris, a political scientist at the Indonesian Institute of Science, argues that Mr Yudhoyono bears responsibility for the patchy reform. The president "is very slow to make decisions", he says, and "not brave enough to take risks". Moreover, "most ministers don't take many initiatives".
A package of bureaucratic reform bills was unveiled in July. But most ministers are unaware of their content and they will become law in 2009 at the earliest.
Meanwhile, Ms Sri Mulyani says that despite widespread coverage in the local media only a few fellow ministers have come knocking to ask about her efforts at finance ministry reforms.
"They have a wait-and-see approach. The attitude of as-long-as-the-boss-is-happy is still very strong."
Under syndication arrangement
with FE