Jakarta – The newly enacted information access law is exposing two worrying conditions – that Indonesia's excessive bureaucracy is an instrument of secrecy, and that the public is largely apathetic to state information, activists say.

"Government officials are used to a bureaucratic culture," chairman of the Central Information Commission Ahmad Alamsyah Saragih told The Jakarta Post last week.

He said most officials were used to hiding information from the public, and that the public was largely unaware of its right to access state information.

The 2008 Law on Access of Public Information, which came into effect on April 30 this year, stipulates that all public institutions – including all levels of government institutions, political parties and NGOs – must provide information to the public.

Recently, the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) conducted a study to test the readiness of public institutions in several regions to comply with the law.

Between May 6 and June 10 this year, the ICW worked with local NGOs in Jakarta, Aceh, Bengkulu in West Sumatra, Banten, Magelang in Central Java, Malang in East Java, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and Samarinda in East Kalimantan.

"In the study, public institutions failed to provide us with the information we requested," the investigation coordinator of ICW, Agus Sunaryanto, told the Post.

"These institutions mostly gave negative responses in providing information related to budgeting," Agus said, adding that only non-budgetary information was easy to obtain.

Alamsyah explained that, "Information is sensitive, especially on budgets and this hinders the implementation of the law".

He said he thought government officials might be afraid that the information they published could result in corruption charges against them.

"Even if the law clearly stipulates the boundaries and definitions for public information, government officials and their public relations staff are often afraid to make mistakes in releasing information," he said.

Since the application of the law, the Communications and Information Technology Ministry has promoted and facilitated its implementation of the law in all public institutions.

"These institutions should already know how the law works," the spokesman for the ministry, Gatot S. Dewa Broto, said.

The government, Agus said, had failed to change its bureaucratic culture, even though it had been given two years to prepare for the law since it was passed in 2008.

"How could the government possibly be ready to fully implement the law?" Alamsyah said, citing the convoluted administrative process of the existing bureaucracy.

Agus said, "The ICW plans to bring the unsettled information requests to the information commission by June 25 in order to provide input to relevant institutions".

He said the disputes were instruments to control these institutions, as well as to exercise the commission's authority in information dispute settlements. (ipa)