Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – The government, employers, labor unions and insurers have called for a revision of the 2004 national social security system law to include five mandatory social security programs and to accelerate stalled deliberations on the social insurers bill.
Deputy Minister for State Enterprises Parikesit Suprapto said the current social security law was unenforceable and needed an immediate revision mainly because it did not regulate who should pay to cover the more than 70 million workers in the informal sector.
"Not to mention the fact that the government and providers have no adequate infrastructure to implement the programs, especially the healthcare benefit scheme."
The law mandates five social security programs – healthcare benefits, occupational accident benefits, death benefits, old age-risk benefits and pension benefits – and that the state will pay for coverage for the poor and the jobless.
Observers say they are doubtful the government is able and willing to implement the program given that the state has done little to implement the law in the seven years since it was passed.
Indonesian Employers' Association chairman Sofyan Wanandi said the government was dragging its feet because it had not issued 10 government regulations and 11 presidential instruction mandated by the law.
"The state budget does not allocate funds to provide basic protection for 240 million people, though ironically it is a fact that a bigger portion of the state budget is available for corruption," he said.
Labor unions and several House factions have called for the impeachment of the President over his government's reluctance to comply with and enforce the law, among other perceived failings.
Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo and seven other ministers representing the government failed to show up to a meeting to deliberate the social insurers bill on Thursday after they failed to convince the House's special committee about the importance of the government's control of the programs and its huge assets.
Surya Chandra Surapaty, a member of the House's special committee from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said the House was actually ready to revise the law to help the government speed up all preparations to implement the national programs stipulated in the law.
"The special committee is open to any ideas and input to repair the law and implement the constitutional imperative that the social security programs are aimed at improving the social welfare and dignity of all Indonesian people," he said.
He warned the government not to politicize the proposed law revision in its attempt to buy time because the proposal was aired seven years after the law was enacted and while it was facing problems regarding the insurers.
Separately, Bambang Purwoko, a social security expert at the University of Indonesia, said he was pessimistic that the healthcare program for all could be implemented in 2014 mainly because of a lack of infrastructure to support the program.
"More than 480 regencies and mayoralties have yet to possess state-run general hospitals with national standards in their medical service and their limited capacity and most hospitals are running short of specialists and necessary equipment," he said, adding that standard hospitals were found only in big cities and in Java and that the government had yet to launch the single identity card program that would allow the government to register all poor and jobless.
Sofyan and All-Indonesia Workers Organization secretary-general Timbul Siregar said the government would face financial difficulties if it had to pay Rp 67 trillion (US$7.4 billion) to provide healthcare for the 32 million poor and unemployed people in the country.
They agreed the government would be only be able to afford the healthcare coverage if it managed the state budget professionally and eliminated corruption.
"If the government has a good will and fights the rampant political corruption, it will be able to implement the pro-poor national programs because our GDP was more than Rp 6,000 trillion last year while our state budget was Rp 1,200 trillion," Sofyan said.