[Anti-corruption campaigners in Indonesia have charged that new districts and townships are being created out of existing provinces, as the nation's decentralisation programme is hijacked by corrupt local elites. Last year alone, 22 new cities or districts were approved by the Indonesian parliament, allowing local leaders to get influential positions and sometimes exploit local resources.]

Transcript:

Abidin: Local government now controls quite large sum of money that they can manage by themselves for pay salaries and programs and when it comes to administration a lot of government functions are now performed by local governments. So clearly it's also going to the local parliaments and they now they manage its resources. Since Indonesia has a lot of ethnics and groups in the regions they feel if they're not well represented in one area then the tendency is for them to create their own areas.

Lam: But some observers say that the whole situation is getting out of hand, that sometimes the decentralisation and the carving up of territories is being done for personal gain by the local elite?

Abidin: I might agree with that assessment if there is no clear reason for it. If it is for the local community empowerment then it might be acceptable. But particularly for the districts moves of the new ones are outside of Java, these are large, large, huge areas. It may have a small amount of popuation but then when government services are required you need to go to these places and it might not be sufficiently served by previous arrangements. So new areas have to be created for that. Local elites might get their first chance of trying to run these places. In that time they may be able to gain some local legitimacy by doling out pork barrels.

Lam: And this happens a lot I understand in resource rich area where there are royalties to be had from the natural resources?

Abidin: Some of the new areas yes, in Riau, in East Kalimantan and in Papua where there are a lot of natural resources and new areas, new districts are created.

Lam: And is this being done with the consent of the central government in Jakarta?

Abidin: Of course when you have new provinces or new districts you have to have that through a national law and it has to be passed by the National parliament. Most of this are of the initiative of the DPR so it's not coming from the government.

Lam: Four new provinces were created over the last four years I understand and 22 new cities or districts were also approved by parliament with another I think 25 pending and likely to be approved this year. Are those figures alarming?

Abidin: It is costly, yes, it is costly not only in the sense of administrative costs but also in the political costs. Each area will have its own local parliament.

Lam: So each district has its own parliament?

Abidin: Yes, each district has its own parliament.

Lam: Do you agree that it's vulnerable to abuse?

Abidin: Especially for local politics yes.

Lam: And so does anything need to be done about this given the fact that the latest report by Transparency International says Indonesia's greatest downfall is corruption?

Abidin: Yes indeed, it is very susceptible to that. If you have local parliament that is very difficult to be accountable to the people, the way to do that is to have direct elections and to shorten the term of office. Currently each legislator serves for five years, they are elected through a proportional system where people cast their ballots on to their party, it's not to the person. There is a feeling that central governments are allowing this abuse to happen because then they have the reason to retract decentralisation and return to the centralistic system as before.