Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman said that his office started auctioning off positions online in an open recruitment scheme, with plans to fill 11 echelon I posts within a month.

Amran said that the anyone with good credentials would be able to apply for the positions.

"It could be any civil servant from within or outside the ministry, like academics from higher education institutes," he told reporters before leaving his South Jakarta office, on Tuesday.

"I won't interfere; only the nation's best will be selected."

Amran said the ministry had recently formed a selection committee consisting of public figures like political analysts Ichsanuddin Noorsy and the Center for Strategic and International Studies' (CSIS) J. Kristiadi, former ministers Bungaran Saragih and Syarifuddin Hasan, academics Hamdi Muluk and Sam Herodian and representatives from the Administrative and Bureaucratic Reforms Ministry.

Furthermore, the minister said there were plans to dissolve the directorate general for the processing and marketing of agricultural products, although he refused to elaborate.

Apart from that, there are only five other positions not included in the open recruitment process: secretary-general, director general for food crops, director general for agricultural facilities and infrastructure, director general for plantations and the minister's special staffer for innovation and technology.

The ministry's decision is in accordance to Presidential Instruction No. 3/2015 on speeding up the process of filling senior government positions. (nfo)

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