My subordinates are slow: Fauzi

Governor Fauzi Bowo has claimed a massive cleanup of his administration as his foremost achievement in his first three years in office, in a city that is overcome with severe flooding, traffic, waste-management and clean-water problems.

Fauzi said he could not instantly tackle all of the city’s problems, as demanded by the city’s residents.

“But I believe the city is moving in the right direction under a good governance,” he told a conference of hundreds of activists who had assembled in City Hall over the weekend to discuss Fauzi’s progress during the first three years of his five-year tenure as governor.

Fauzi said he was disappointed by the slow performance of his subordinates in programs to develop the city, and promised to speed them up.

“Sluggishness becomes an obstacle when we respond to the expectations of people who, unfortunately, have ‘instant’ characters,” he said, without elaborating.

Three years ago, Fauzi and Vice Governor Prijanto won the first-ever gubernatorial election under a campaign slogan of “leave it to the expert”. They secured 60 percent of the votes.

Fauzi has a doctoral degree in urban planning from the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany, and an undergraduate degree in architecture from the Braunschweig University of Technology, also in Germany.

Previously he was a lecturer at the University of Indonesia, the head of the city’s tourism agency, a city secretary and deputy governor of Jakarta under his predecessor’s — Sutiyoso — administration.

Fauzi made several campaign promises — including to complete corridors 11 through 15 of the Transjakarta busway, and build a new bus terminal in Pulogebang in East Jakarta by 2012. The promises were formalized in a 2008 bylaw.

However, critics say urban management and the city’s ecology have deteriorated during his tenure.

City councilor from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction, Selamat Nurdin, said the governor had made crucial progress in terms of good governance, “but people don’t really want to know about such reform. All they want to see is quick action that can address congestion, garbage and flood problems,” he told The Jakarta Post recently.

He said the city’s officials did not share Fauzi’s sense of urgency in carrying out his programs. “The Governor has to look for people who can carry out the programs more quickly.”

A councilor from the Democratic Party faction, Achmad Husein Alaydrus, shared a similar view on the governor’s first three years in office.

“I acknowledge that his administration is clean,” he said, adding that Fauzi had never tried to bribe city councilors.

Fauzi said he welcomed criticism, saying “I have many weaknesses, but my staffers have more”.

But the governor has shown he was undeterred by criticism of his plan to build several new flyovers and elevated toll roads in the city.

Transportation experts have said the policy is illogical, because it channels state funds for projects that encourage the use of private cars, rather than for desperately needed improvements to public transportation.

Responding to the issues of flooding in the capital, Fauzi lamented delays to several mega projects, which he blamed on “issues of authority”, many of which were in the hands of the government.

During the past three years, Fauzi administration’s has restored several city gardens and expanded green spaces in the city by an area equivalent to 26 soccer fields.

The city has also claimed that flooding caused by heavy rain disperses much more quickly now, thanks to the East Flood Canal, which was completed in 2009.