It has been three months since President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono put his signature on a landmark immigration bill. Under the new law, foreigners married to Indonesians would no longer have to apply for a work permit every year.

They also would no longer be sponsored by an employer as an Indonesian citizen would be able to sponsor their spouse. The bill is a breakthrough in terms of not discriminating against Indonesians married to foreigners.

Three months on, though, little has changed. The Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration is still clinging to the 2003 labor law that states foreign workers are allowed to work in Indonesia only if they are sponsored by the company. The sponsor must pay an annual fee even if the foreigners has an Indonesian spouse.

It is worrying to hear Edy Purnama, an official from the directorate of foreign workers at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, openly admit its unwillingness to implement the new immigration law.

"We still have to protect Indonesian workers," he said, adding that the fee to renew a work permit should be paid by the sponsor or the company instead of the foreign worker. He is entitled to his views, but as a government official he is duty-bound to apply the law.

We thus back the comments by Fahri Hamzah, former chairman of the parliamentary working committee on the immigration bill, that the ministry's excuse of protecting Indonesian workers was uncalled for because protectionism would only ruin the country's reputation. Indonesia would be deemed a closed country that did not accommodate the need to improve the investment climate.

Implementation has always been Indonesia's Achilles' heel. Bureaucratic red tape, poor coordination among various government departments and a lack of will has hindered progress even when new laws are passed. This must change, and a new mind-set needs to be adopted if Indonesia is to become progressive.

Few countries in the world treat their citizens so poorly when they choose to marry a foreigner. Not only do the children of Indonesians married to foreigners lose their rights to own property, they also lose the right to claims Indonesian citizenship. The new immigration law has righted these wrongs. There is no excuse not to implement it as it benefits the nation.