Hans David Tampobolon, Jakarta – Masayuki Naoshima, Japan's Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry, never imagined he would have to wait over 30 minutes to see a minister after meeting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the Palace.

Tired of waiting, the Japanese minister left the office of Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Darwin Saleh grumbling after he failed to show up for the meeting last week. "It is very shameful," one of Naoshima's delegates said.

Darwin claimed he was stuck in traffic, and he made up for his lateness by meeting with Naoshima later at the latter's hotel. A government source, however, said that the second meeting never took place because Naoshima was too upset to meet with Darwin, and told his subordinates to meet him.

While in 10 days Yudhoyono's Cabinet will end its first 100-day period, ministers like Darwin have become a source of disappointment with the Cabinet failing to achieve its targets, with some observers and legislators agreeing that the administration's performance has been disappointing so far.

The first 100 days were characterized by lack of tight organization, starting from the failure of some ministers to get their act together and overshadowed by the brouhaha of the Bank Century investigation.

A legislator from the House of Representatives Commission VII on energy, Effendi Simbolon from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), told The Jakarta Post on Sunday that Darwin's lack of professionalism was not entirely his own fault.

"The person who is most responsible for Darwin's appointment is the President. Why did he appoint such an incapable person in the first place anyway?" he said.

Effendi also said that the President had already disappointed the public with his decision on the Cabinet composition.

"The President promised that the Cabinet in his second term would be more professional, however, we all know that the Cabinet is filled with a lot of political party figures who are lacking in competence and capabilities," he said.

Yudhoyono's Cabinet is considered by some antigraft activists to have failed in delivering the country's main agenda to uphold the rule of law and pursue corruption eradication in the first 100 days.

"The government's strategies on upholding law and corruption eradication, so far, focus only on partial strategies, such as focusing on building a good image," Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) coordinator Febri Diansyah said.

A legislator from the House Commission III on law, Desmon Mahesa from the Greater Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra), said that the government did not focus seriously on the real substance of law and corruption issues.

"What we have seen so far is how the government tries its best to build a good image by establishing needless law enforcement teams outside the police and the Attorney General's Office [AGO]," he said.

"We all know that those teams, such as the recent judicial mafia, task force are nothing but cosmetic attempts to entice the public. Yudhoyono should have put more focus on reforming the police and the AGO," he added.

Presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said that people should not judge the Cabinet's performance prematurely before the 100-day period ended and that he believed all ministries had done their best to meet their targets.

"There are some ministries that have yet to achieve their goals, but we should note that there are a couple of days to go before the 100-day period ends," he said.