Camelia Pasandaran – The government is establishing a team headed by Vice President Boediono to oversee a massive program of bureaucratic reforms that would take until 2025 to complete.
"The National Bureaucracy Reform Team will push for employee discipline, synchronizing the work of related state ministries and agencies and getting rid of overlapping duties altogether," Minister of State for Administrative Reform E.E. Mangindaan said after meeting with Boediono on Wednesday.
Mangindaan added that state institutions would be encouraged to monitor and evaluate every single employee.
The agencies to be targeted next year include the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), the Attorney General's Office, the National Police, the Defense Ministry and the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, he said at a briefing on bureaucratic reform at Sahid Jaya Hotel in Central Jakarta.
"Rewards, including increases in allowances, will be given to those with good track records and punishments such as a pay cut or dismissal will be rendered to those who cannot adjust to new measures," Mangindaan said.
"We aim to create an atmosphere that has zero tolerance for corruption. Preventive efforts will involve the issuing of regulations and the implementation of the Public Service Law next year. Punitive measures will include employees getting the sack," he added.
The Public Service Law stipulates that state institutions must assess their employees using criteria approved by the government. The law also says that institutions should process public complaints and take immediate action to resolve them.
The government began bureaucratic reforms within the Finance Ministry in 2007, before moving on to the Supreme Audit Agency and the Supreme Court in 2008. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati revealed recently that investigations within her ministry had resulted in disciplinary sanctions being taken against 1,961 personnel.
The government has already raised civil service salaries by 21 percent to a total of Rp 161.7 trillion ($17.1 billion) in 2010 to make officials less susceptible to graft.
But Roy Valiant Salomo, an expert on bureaucracy at the University of Indonesia, warned that the latest reforms missed the mark.
"Bureaucratic reform is not only about remuneration," he explained. "The main requirement for bureaucratic reform is a change in mind-set, but the mentality has not been changed."