T

he Partnership for Governance Reform has ranked Yogyakarta as the province with the best governance but the partnership deemed its administration as '€œunfair'€ in coordination and public service in the fields of health and education.

In a survey for the Indonesia Governance Index (IGI), the partnership found that Yogyakarta still had problems in both fields as demonstrated by the limited budgets for the health and education sectors.

One of the researchers, Lenny Hidayat, said that for health the provincial administration only allocated Rp 5,807 (59 US cents) per person per year. The education budget is Rp 108,000 per person annually, despite the province being popularly known as the city of education.

'€œThe budget allocated for poverty eradication is also small, only Rp 100,147 per person annually,'€ Lenny said during the launch of the survey results in Yogyakarta on Tuesday.

As a consequence, Lenny said, programs aimed at reducing the number of economically deprived families in Yogyakarta were also slower compared to that of other provinces in the country. '€œYogyakarta'€™s provincial administration is not yet efficient. Some 60 to 70 percent of its budget goes on paying its civil servants,'€ Lenny said.

Another researcher, M. Faried Cahyono, said that the survey was a comprehensive analysis of administrative performance. Components measured included the principles of participation, accountability, fairness, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness.

The criteria used in the survey were administration, bureaucracy, civil society and economic community at the provincial level. The IGI awarded points on a scale of one to 10. '€œYogyakarta came out on top with an index of 6.8 while North Maluku was the worst with an index of 4.41,'€ Faried said.

Faried added that Yogyakarta provincial administration had shown an improvement in its performance from fifth place in 2008. He attributed this to historical reasons as the province had inherited a monarchic administration. '€œIts status as a city of education and its once being the state capital have also contributed a great deal to Yogyakarta'€™s position,'€ said Faried.

Of the overall result, the average index for all provinces was 5.67, a standard of governance rated as '€œmoderate'€. The worst performances were mostly recorded in eastern parts of Indonesia.

'€œThe survey shows what needs attention, namely fairness and government efficiency, efficiency in the bureaucracy and effectiveness in the economic community,'€ Faried said.

Responding to the survey results, assistant to Yogyakarta provincial secretary for general administration, Sigit Sapto Rahardjo, said that the provincial administration needed to listen to advice from the community for it to perform better. '€œGood governance is very important for the bureaucracy to keep up with the dynamics of development,'€ Sigit said.

Separately the Alliance of Yogyakarta Workers (ABY) secretary general Kirnadi said that despite the improvements the provincial administration had made in its governance, workers in the province still found it difficult to access information from the administration.