T

he newly enacted Law No. 18/2016 on regional government officials will bring efficiency and effectiveness to the duties of regional institutions, the head of the innovation center and human resources at the National Administration Institute (LAN), Haris Fauzan, has said.

“The spirit of the law is to create a better management platform to avoid the bulk of institutions and unnecessary expenses in regional levels. The law also provides greater authority for provincial governments to handle cities and regencies affairs,” Haris told a seminar recently.

However, he acknowledged that there would be negative consequences of the reform, including a time adjustment for officials to work in different units. “The law also limits training [diklat] to be organized on provincial levels only,” he said.

An observer on decentralization and regional autonomy, Widhi Novianto, said the law would limit regions from developing their potential because their autonomy to manage four crucial fields — forestry, fisheries and marine affairs, education and natural resources — would be shifted to the provincial level.

“When the management is solely run by the provincial levels, there is a potential of an overload of work. Therefore, there is a possibility the sources would not be well managed,” he said.

Widhi also highlighted that provincial governments needed to take measures to map certain areas within their respective regions based on the actual conditions.

“The downsizing of several institutions might cause difficulty in determining the standardized competence of heads of institutions. There has to be a comprehensive study about dividing jobs and a mechanism of coordination,” he said.