Ronna Nirmala, Dwi Lusiana, Nurdin Hasan, Amir Tejo & Banjir Ambarita – The government praised 23 regions on Monday for their performance in serving the public, but experts across the country were quick to point out the failings of regional autonomy.
At an event to mark the 15th anniversary of regional autonomy, government officials named three provincial and 20 district and municipal administrations as having shown the best performance since 2009.
Vice President Boediono suggested that those cited, including the North Sulawesi, South Sulawesi and Central Java administrations, be given incentives by the home affairs and finance ministries. He also encouraged other regions to improve their performance and deliver better services to the public.
However, Siti Zuhro, a regional autonomy expert from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said the concept would only work well if it was supported by sweeping bureaucratic reforms.
"We can't ignore the fact that our bureaucracy is inconsistent in enforcing regulations and sometimes forgets the basic tenets of the Constitution, including ensuring social welfare and democracy," she said.
She also said regional autonomy, while devolving power away from Jakarta, required close cooperation between the central and regional governments in order to function effectively.
She added that the central government needed to be consistent in overseeing and assisting local governments to prevent "little kings" ruling over feudal-like regional administrations.
Haryadi, a political expert at Surabaya's Airlangga University, said the problem with Indonesia's regional autonomy was that the central government still retained most of the financial authority.
"It's no wonder that 99 percent of districts and cities in the country are highly dependent on funding from Jakarta for their development," he said.
He said another shortcoming was that power previously held by the executive branch of government was now in the hands of the legislative branch. "When the law on autonomy was drafted, it was assumed that the legislative would be filled with good people, angels almost," he said.
What actually happened, he said, was the advent of massive corruption and abuse of power by regional legislators that has gone largely unchecked. "What regional autonomy has done is shift political corruption from the bureaucracy to the legislature," Haryadi said.
Ibnu Tri Cahyo, a member of the national Ombudsman Commission and the former head of regional autonomy studies at Brawijaya University in Malang, East Java, agreed autonomy had given rise to feudal administrations and corrupt legislatures.
"Regional autonomy has resulted in policies that are pro-government, at the expense of the public interest," he said. "Hence, the public is left with little authority to monitor administrations or their use of power. Without public control, regional administrations will tend to be authoritarian and corrupt."
Nazamuddin Basyah Said, an economist at Banda Aceh's Syiah Kuala University, said regional autonomy would never be effective as long as there was no proper fiscal management by regional administrations. "The amount of money each administration gets for development means nothing if it's mismanaged the way leaders in Aceh tend to do," he said.
He cited the recent arrest of North Aceh district head Ilyas A. Hamid and his deputy, Syarifuddin, for embezzling Rp 220 billion ($25.5 million) from the regional budget. "Other than autonomy, what we need is better governance and policy planning," Nazamuddin said.
Deky Rumaropen, head of the Community Development Foundation in Jayapura, said similar problems existed in Papua. He said mining revenue was flooding into the provincial coffers but not filtering down to the people.
"Special autonomy has given rise to a handful of newly rich people, mostly in the bureaucracy, but has done nothing to lift the rest of the people out of poverty," he said.
[Additional reporting by Antara.]