Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – Deliberation of bill on access to information from public institutions within the House of Representatives could end in deadlock because the government wants an exception for state-owned enterprises, says a lawmaker.
"The deliberation may be deadlocked because we (legislators) disagree with the government which insists on excluding state enterprises from the draft," said Djoko Susilo, a member of the House' Commission I on information, defense and foreign affairs on Saturday.
He said the draft, now being debated by a House working committee, would probably go to a separate committee for further discussion.
"The team from the government fully insists on excluding state enterprises from the bill and would not mind if... (the result is) deadlock," he said.
Djoko said the government's rigid position showed it did not seek reform, which was ultimately contrary to the public interest.
"If the special committee fails to finish the draft then we may ask the House Speaker to send a letter to the President to let him know that his minister refuses the reform," Djoko said, referring to State Minister of State Enterprises Sofyan A. Djalil.
Paulus Widiyanto from the Coalition for the Freedom of Public Information told a discussion that the government did not have a good argument for excluding state enterprises from the bill.
"The state enterprises meet all the criteria as public institutions, they operate by using the people's money and they have public service obligations."
Moreover, he said the bill would clearly define what information pertaining to state enterprises would be accessible to the public and a provision existed in the draft for protecting certain categories of information, "if the government was worried that including state enterprises... would threaten their businesses." Andreas H. Pareira, also a member of the information, defense and foreign affairs commission, was of a similar view and pointed out that even the state intelligence agency did not oppose the bill.
Danang Widoyoko of Indonesian Corruption Watch said irregularities were common in state enterprises because of a lack of transparency.
"There were 166 corruption cases reported in 2006 with potential state losses of Rp 14.4 trillion (US$1.5 billion)," he said, adding that those cases were mostly found in state enterprises and regional administrations.
"These have happened because there is no law that assures access to information on those companies".
"Therefore we need to improve oversight of (state) companies, which would be easier if we had an access to public information bill."