Camelia Pasandaran – Hundreds of flawed local bylaws have been quashed by the central government since the country began the shift toward regional autonomy, the Ministry of Home Affairs disclosed on Monday.

The number of regional bylaws has significantly increased since regional autonomy was introduced in 2001 to increase local control over government and economic resources.

However, the central government has been examining the effectiveness of decentralization amid rising concerns about the impact of giving greater autonomy to regional authorities.

Saut Situmorang, a spokesman for the Home Affairs Ministry, said that out of the 7,500 bylaws issued from 2002 to 2009, more than 3,000 could end up being either revised or repealed. "One thousand and sixty-four have been repealed, while 1,199 are now in the process of being repealed," he said.

The central government evaluates regional bylaws affecting local budgets, taxation and land and space management before they come into effect, and many are revised or repealed because they conflict with existing laws or bylaws. The central government has repealed 121 regional bylaws this year.

Saut said the most common problem was a lack consistency with other laws. "We also repeal bylaws that are against the public interest and if they are incompatible with other bylaws," he said.

Indonesia now has 524 administrative regions, made up of provinces districts and municipalities, up from 309 prior to the shift to regional autonomy.

The government has poured enormous sums of money into the regions over the last five years in an attempt to equalize public services and encourage economic development across the country. But many officials now see decentralization as an obstacle to improving public welfare.

Siti Zuhro, a regional autonomy expert from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said her research indicated the high number of flawed bylaws was related to the redistribution of funding from local government tariffs.

"Local governments and the regional legislative councils [DPRDs] try to go around laws of higher legal standing to increase regional income because some of it has to be transferred to the central government," she said.

Zuhro said repealing flawed bylaws was not the solution. "What they should do to stop the problem is to teach local governments the correct procedures for drafting bylaws."