The Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD) said Monday the formation of new provinces, cities and regencies across the country had not yet created prosperity because of inefficiencies hampering development of the regions.
The watch’s external relations manager, Robert Endi Jaweng, said the problem stemmed from poor management by officials at both the central government and regional administrations.
He added this was due to the lack of an overarching strategy for regional development, eight years after the implementation of the 1999 Regional Autonomy Law.
A grand strategy, Robert said, should include long-term plans, such as outlining areas of potential development up until 2020.
He said regional development could only be properly assessed once financial management reform records and transparent information systems were in place.
“According to the survey, West Sulawesi and West Papua have not yet shown any improvement in local people’s welfare after they separated from their parent provinces,” he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a press conference reviewing the performance of newly created regions following the reform era.
West Sulawesi broke away from South Sulawesi on Oct. 5, 2004, while West Papua and Papua split on Nov. 21, 2001.
According to the watch, 203 new autonomous regions, comprising seven provinces, 33 cities and 163 regencies have been established in the last 10 years.
The watch’s research manager, Sigit Murwito, told the conference that most of the surveyed regions had failed to meet their budget disbursement targets by the end of this year.
“Most regions had disbursed only 45 percent of their total regional budgets by the third quarter of this year,” he said.
Sigit also predicted that most regions would, at most, only be able to disburse 85 percent of their total budgets by the end of this year.
He added the central government should consider returning newly-created regions to their parent regions if their administrative officials had not proven themselves effective in creating prosperity for the local populous.
“There are only a few regions that have been successful in implementing regional autonomy,” he said,
adding that Gorontalo was one of them.
Gorontalo, which separated from North Sulawesi, has spent more than 90 percent of its local budgets every year, he said, adding this was a positive indication of development in the region.
“Gorontalo has been developing the corn plantation sector, as corn is considered as a potential food resouce for the region,” Robert said.
He also criticized inefficiencies in the government because decisions for granting autonomy to new regions were made through three institutions: the government, the House of Representatives (DPR) and the House of Regional Representatives (DPD).
“This can lead to a lot of political deals between the DPR and regions,” he said, adding the DPR did not usually conduct any field surveys before deciding which areas should be granted autonomy.
Robert said he expected the system to change, as the only the government should have the right to grant autonomy to new regions because of its knowledge about potential areas of development and the resources in each region.
Separately, the Home Affairs Ministry’s spokesman, Saut Situmorang, could not be reached for comments on Tuesday.
The ministry is in charge of, among other things, controlling the activities of regional administrations across the country. (nia)
