Eka Yudha Saputra, Jakarta – The Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Indonesia, Yose Rizal Damuri, said nearly 9,000 ministerial regulations were circulating in Indonesia before President Prabowo Subianto's Red and White Cabinet.
Besides ministerial regulations, Yose said, tens of thousands of ministerial circular letters are in force, serving as the basis for technical regulations in Indonesia.
"You can imagine how many regulations will be issued now that there are 42 ministries and other state agencies," Yose said in a webinar discussion titled 'Responding to the Prabowo-Gibran Cabinet: Implications, Risks, and Inputs' broadcast on the CSIS Indonesia YouTube channel on Friday, October 25, 2024.
According to Yose, Indonesia ought to streamline regulations, especially since Prabowo has authorized an agency to issue legal products. Indonesia, he said, should not be a country that actively issues regulations. "So, streamlining regulations is crucial going forward," Yose said.
President Prabowo Subianto announced the names of ministers, deputy ministers, and ministerial-level officials in the Red and White Cabinet at Merdeka Palace, Jakarta, on Sunday night, October 20, 2024.
As many as 108 individuals were appointed as Prabowo's assistants in the government. They consist of 7 coordinating ministers, 41 ministers, 55 deputy ministers, and 5 ministerial-level officials, including the Attorney General and Cabinet Secretary.
The cabinet is larger than former President Joko Widodo's Onward Indonesia Cabinet, which consists of 34 ministries, including coordinating ministries.
Prabowo's oversized cabinet has also been criticized by senior economist from the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF), Fadhil Hasan. He said that the addition of ministries in President Prabowo Subianto's cabinet is inefficient, and these changes will be challenging at the start of Prabowo's administration.
"For the next 1-2 years, the oversized cabinet will both be inefficient and sluggish," he said in an official statement on Tuesday, October 22.
Another issue that will arise concerns coordination between the Prabowo-led ministries and agencies. "There will be overlapping responsibilities between the ministers," he
[Daniel A. Fajri and Ilona Estherina contributed to the writing of this article.]