Jakarta – The government plans to establish an institution that will be responsible for synchronizing contradictory and overlapping rules in regulations issued by different institutions, which have been blamed for sluggish investment growth.
National Development Planning Minister/National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) head Bambang Brodjonegoro said in Jakarta on Wednesday that contradictory and overlapping rules in the country's regulations had long been a serious issue.
Without revealing details about the planned institution, he stressed it was needed to address an issue that hindered business activity, because investors considered it the cause of legal uncertainty that could spoil their business prospects.
Admitted he did not have any detailed record of contradictory or overlapping regulations at hand, Bambang noted that Indonesia had about 150,000 regulations issued by ministries and other institutions.
Speaking about overlapping regulations that could hamper investment, he gave an example quoted by kontan.co.id that prospective investors were referred to nine laws, four presidential regulations (Perpres), two government regulations (PP) and 20 ministerial regulations (Permen) for carrying out investment in the country.
Chandra Hamzah, a founder of the Jantera Law College that carried out a study on overlapping regulations, said the planned institution could help cut red tape for investors.
To establish the institution, the President only needed to issue a presidential regulation, he said, adding that the existing institutions, like the National Legislation Supervision Body and the Legislation Directorate General under the Law and Human Rights Ministry could be integrated with the new institution. (bbn)