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em>Besides tackling poverty, one of the priorities of the new government is streamlining the country'€™s sprawling bureaucracy. The nation'€™s bureaucracy is often deemed overstaffed, under-productive, overly expensive and graft-ridden. President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo has been touting a concept called '€œmental revolution'€ to transform the country'€™s inefficient bureaucracy into a lean and well-oiled machine. One of the first steps is a moratorium on civil-service recruitment. The Jakarta Post'€™s Hans Nicholas Jong recently talked to Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Yuddy Chrisnandi about the country'€™s bureaucratic issues.

Question: How do you translate the concept of mental revolution initiated by President Jokowi to your duties?

Answer: The implementation of mental revolution is bureaucratic reformation. All units of government institutions up to the leadership of the new ministries are obligated to conduct organizational audits to cut down on bureaucratic red-tape, trim the number of civil servants who have no added value and speed up decision-making.

We also change the mind-set of the state apparatus that has not been active enough in solving problems. Now they have to be active and get down on the field. That is why the leadership of Jokowi marks the end of the priyayi (aristocratic) bureaucrats and the start of the bureaucrats who serve the public.

What is your target as a minister?

I do not have an individual vision and mission. I use the vision and mission of Jokowi, which is the Nawacita [Jokowi'€™s nine priority programs] and Trisakti [three political principles outlined by former president Sukarno: political sovereignty, economic independence and national character].

The first is to start a national movement of mental revolution in bureaucrats. We have three targets: changing the mind-set from being served to serving, reconstructing institutions and their structures and revitalizing the working culture to embrace teamwork among government institutions and ditch sectoral egos.

The second is efficiency. The President has ordered a stop to the wasting of money. Work hours have to be productive. We have to cut off unnecessary business trips. We also have to lessen the use of electricity, water, utensils and food.

In the past, government events usually included food like grapes, Swiss apples, Taiwanese oranges and so on. We have to stop consuming imported goods. For example, now in the Bureaucratic Reform Ministry [Administrative Reforms Ministry] you will see peanuts and bananas as snacks.

How will you implement a plan to realize your targets?

Through ministerial letters. I have produced the letters. They only have to be distributed [to other government institutions].

Recently you ordered civil servants to not get stuck in protocol. What do you mean by that?

When we are talking about protocol, we have the tendency to follow everything as planned, which is good as a guide.

But in practice, we have to be creative in pushing the boundaries of protocol to get to the heart of problems and to the object of our service, which is the public. With that, we will able to know the truth. If we only hear reports from our subordinates, of course the tendency is for us to hear only good things.

Could you tell us more about the planned moratorium on civil-servant recruitment?

We are studying a five-year plan. Currently, we are still in the stage of studying the plan and the moratorium will start in early 2015. But there is no need to worry. The moratorium does not stop the recruitment process abruptly.

It also does not mean the dismissal of current civil servants. The moratorium is a policy to reassess whether the current policy [on civil-servant recruitment] really has a benefit or not.

As we all know, there are 4.3 million civil servants spread throughout the country. That huge number costs 41 percent of the 2014 state budget, which is Rp 2.019 trillion. It means that we spend more than Rp 800 trillion just to pay civil servants'€™ salaries.

So, besides reducing the burden on the state, we also have to think about how this number of civil servants can produce results. Therefore, this moratorium aims to encourage civil servants to become more efficient in their work.

We also have to evaluate the current condition, whether there are too many civil servants in one institution or not. What if during the moratorium there is a need for experts? Then we could utilize the existing civil servants by increasing their capacity. We do not need to recruit additional civil servants. We only have to add the cost for capacity-building, such as hiring tutors.

What about the recruitment of teachers?

This moratorium does not apply to teachers because we still want to increase the quality of education. The process of increasing the status of honorary teachers through civil-servant recruitment will continue.

We also still need a lot of medical workers, such as doctors, nurses and so on. These two sectors are the biggest sectors where we need [new recruits].

What is the current plan for implementing e-governance?

All of these [plans] are under construction. We are aiming for a one-stop agency policy. Our target is for all provinces to have that policy in six months. We need to back it up with IT to reduce the implementation time.

Once the e-governance has started, all institutions will need to build networks [among the institutions]. We need a good system, a quality apparatus and experts to build connections.

We already have the law on civil service, which is the Law No. 5/2014. What'€™s next?

The law is only the top of the regulation. The elaboration of it needs to be stipulated in government regulation and presidential decree.

We need these to determine operational steps. Hopefully, the presidential decree on that law can be finished in two or three months and next year can be implemented.