Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono held on Friday the maiden Cabinet meeting of his second term, consolidating relations with new members and underlining his intention to run a tight ship.

The meeting was held just a day after 34 ministers and two state officials were sworn in with the sole instruction to work hard.

In his two-hour address to the Cabinet, Yudhoyono, accompanied by Vice President Boediono, put a heavy emphasis on the importance of good teamwork to achieve progress and attain the 100-day, one-year and five-year targets, which Presidential Unit for the Management of Programs (UKP3) chairman Kuntoro Mangkusubroto helped draw up.

"The head of the presidential unit will, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, work to make sure that everything, including de-bottlenecking (of hindrances to development), run well," Yudhoyono said at the opening of the meeting at the State Secretariat.

"He will, if necessary, be my eyes, my ears and my hands... and I will set for him certain responsibilities that will not overlap with the (three) coordinating ministers."

Seemingly drawing from past experience, Yudhoyono ordered all the ministers and state officials to set up hotline numbers to allow him to contact them at any given time. He added he would not make any phone calls if he had nothing important to discuss.

"I hate it the most when I try to call a minister for one or two hours and they don't answer, respond nor try to find out what I want," he said. "Unless they're on board a plane or visiting remote regions where there is no cell phone signal."

Yudhoyono also told the new ministers to seek his permission first if they planned to go abroad, and to be selective in taking up overseas invitations.

The Cabinet meeting also gave a hint of Yudhoyono's intention to get a strong grip over and maintain control of the country's envoys stationed overseas, when he said he had heard of many diplomats frequently flying back and forth to Jakarta and leaving their posts for long periods for party-related activities.

He called on Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa in particular to issue a tight ruling on the matter. "They are my overseas representatives," Yudhoyono pointed out.

"How can they be (representing the country) if they keep leaving their posts over and over? And what if something happens in the countries where they're stationed? And what's more, if they return to Jakarta for party matters, give them warnings. And if they still do it, recall them."

Yudhoyono then called on the ministers to establish clear lines of communication with provincial governors, saying the latter were responsible for implementing their programs at the regional level.

Over the past five years, he went on, he had sensed strained ties between the central government and regional administrations, and would thus assign Vice President Boediono to find the root causes of the problems and solutions.

Yudhoyono added the vice presidential office would be moved into the Presidential Palace complex to ensure a more "solid" and "synergized" work relationship.

"We'll only have presidential decrees from now on; there will be no more vice presidential decrees," he said. "And we will work under one roof."

In his speech, meanwhile, Boediono said that although in the end it would be the President making the decisions, he and the ministers would be involved in the decision-making process.

"Thus the expression about the Vice President being a 'spare tire' is irrelevant, because along with the ministers, a Vice President is part of the entire car," he said, referring to earlier comments by former vice president Jusuf Kalla that Boediono should not be a mere "spare tire" for Yudhoyono.