Susan Long, Jakarta - You know surrealism is a way of life here when your mobile phone begins trilling as you peer into the smoky cauldron of the active volcano Bromo in East Java. Nothing but lava sand covers the vast emptiness between mountain peaks, but Telkomsel's reception here is even better than in the heart of urban Jakarta.

But if the 15-year-old horse called Manis (Sweet) you are on should stumble and throw you onto the crater floor as his 10-year-old jockey pulls him into a trot, chances are that no one will call for an ambulance. For there is no emergency hotline to call in this tourist mecca, or a well-equipped emergency room for miles. You are better off getting someone to drive you the two or three hours into Malang, where local doctors recently worked with Singapore volunteers to build and staff a modern ER. Or you can try the private, high-tech, paperless, high-rise hospital in Surabaya that has yet to open for lack of a top management team.

And you will be lucky – half of all accident victims here never make it to a doctor. But those who do and survive, will have all their medical expenses taken care of by a state accident insurance scheme.

This juxtaposition of developed world amenities and rudimentary living conditions after some 30 years of central planning may explain why most Indonesians will probably greet their new President's first budget statement with indifference, after some mortified shouting over the planned hikes in petrol and electricity prices.

Yet, it should be reassuring for Indonesians that, despite a debt trap that makes fiscal prudence a non-optional virtue, President Megawati Sukarnoputri's maiden Budget does make a credible link between her policy agenda and its implementation.

If there is still any doubt, it should be clear by now that at its most fundamental, her definition of reformasi is giving each Indonesian equal access to at least nine years of education, basic health care, shelter and the means to a better way of life, regardless of where they live in the archipelago.

It should also be clear that eradicating corruption requires giving civil servants decent wages while cutting out pork-barrel spending and bureaucratic waste. Maintaining national security also means equipping the troops with the weapons to deter disintegration.

And so if Parliament approves her budget allocations, Manis the horse will probably still have to haul tourists up Mount Bromo each dawn, but his boy-jockey will be in school and perhaps grow up to be the CEO of a modern hospital. Accident victims will be able to get basic medical attention in any village health post, which a doctor will man because he gets a living wage out of it.And Telkomsel with its excellent, and spotty, nation-wide coverage will be privatised to raise cash to pay off Indonesia's creditors.

Articulating a people-first vision and putting numbers to it is, of course, not sufficient. Ms Megawati will still have to convince Indonesians of the necessity of putting up with the, hopefully, temporary pain of steeper petrol and electricity rates, and the inflationary effect on food prices of higher transport and production overheads.

Blaming previous governments for sinking Indonesia into a US$150 billion debt nightmare that sucks up 25 per cent of the budget in repayments is the easy part.

Ensuring that whatever revenues remain available to the bureaucracy is wisely spent and will deliver promised services to the people is a little more difficult. As a wit once said, any jackass can plan a balanced budget on paper.

Then the real battle begins – getting the budget enacted by Parliament, and making sure civil servants spend the money on programmes which carry out the President's priorities.

With her own party controlling one third of Parliament and the crucial Commission 9 which will scrutinise the budget, Ms Megawati's government will probably not have to lobby too hard to stop MPs from dickering with the details.But even with a policy agenda that is more realistic than ambitious, maintaining momentum is crucial.

And so a President who can seemingly do no wrong now should make sure no one doubts her commitment to putting her people first.