Many people know Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar as chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB), a former House speaker, and the nephew of former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid.
Yesterday he took a trip down memory lane.
Most residents of Wonosobo, a regency in Central Java, some 100 kilometers west of Yogyakarta, were surprised when Muhaimin, who spent his childhood in Sukoharjo village in the regency, was entrusted by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with a ministerial position and made a public appearance at a hybrid chili harvest in the village on Sunday.
"The little boy has now become a minister," said Arief, one of Muhaimin's childhood friends.
Muhaimin, who was greeted with a red carpet and traditional Javanese music and dances, inspected the 6-hectare chili garden, which is managed by the Archipelagic Youth Anchor (JMN) organization and employs 2,300 young people in the village. He said the JMN and their work in the fertile mountainous subdistrict was inspirational.
"This fertile land and the success of the youths' work in the regency inspires me to encourage youths in other regions to help deal with unemployment and poverty," he said.
Muhaimin, who was born in Jombang, East Java, bought some chili to be presented to the President and ministers to win their support for his rural agribusiness-for-youth program nationwide.
The idea of chili farming was originally Muhaimin's but was implemented by Wonosobo Regent Abdul Kholiq Arief, who set aside Rp 83 million from the regency's budget, built largely on the regency's tobacco revenue, early this year.
Touching down in Yogyakarta, a place he sees as a second home, (he went to senior high school in Kauman district and studied at the Sunan Kalijaga State Institute of Islamic Studies and Gadjah Mada University in 1980s) Muhaimin visited the training house for pros-pective transmigrants and the SGM milk factory, to disseminate programs to intensify resettlement programs and campaign for harmonious industrial relations over the next five years.
"Many transmigrants have returned to their home villages because they were not well trained. Over the next five years the program will be redesigned to stimulate and encourage growth in remote and less-developed regions nationwide," he said.
With the acknowledgement of having no background in either labor unions, resettlement programs or labor export, the minister expressed a strong commitment to learning the three issues in depth, designing development programs and paying more attention to achieve advancements in the portfolio.
"Our main program is to reduce unemployment from 10 percent to 5 percent and the poverty rate from 17 percent to 10 percent over the next five years. This will be achieved only by forging harmonious industrial relations at company level to create a conducive business climate, intensifying microfinance in the resettlement program and diversifying the labor market for semi-skilled migrant workers overseas," he said.
Addressing the opening ceremony of a national workshop on industrial relations in the city, the minister hinted at a review of the controversial labor law that would phase out conflicting articles, better the remuneration system in the formal sector and create harmonious industrial relations.
"The government will play its role as a regulator, facilitator and policy maker, but both employers and workers must come to the table to break the deadlock regarding controversial articles in the labor law," he said.
Asked to comment on the increasing number of migrant workers abused in workplaces overseas, Muhaimin said Indonesia would continue the suspension of labor supply to Malaysia and Kuwait until the two countries took necessary measures to protect migrant workers employed as housemaids.
- JP/Ridwan Max Sijabat
