T

here are many ways to examine the performance of an institution; the most commonly practiced is through quantitative performance evaluation.

The House of Representatives ended its fifth sitting period of the year on Thursday. Yet, there is not much to show for its legislative performance, having only passed three bills into law during the sitting period.

The tax amnesty, regional election and patent bills lawmakers finished deliberating and passed before they closed the sitting period on Thursday, leaving the 43 other bills in the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) to be deliberated before the end of the year.

Earlier this year, the House listed 40 priority bills for the 2016 Prolegnas, four of which have been passed into law.

They were the Public Housing Savings (Tapera) Law; the Fishermen, Fishing Pond Farmers and Salt Farmers Protection and Empowerment Law; the Disability Law; and the Financial System Crisis Prevention and Mitigation (PPKSK) Law.

The House added 10 more bills in June to the Prolegnas list. The 10 additional bills included the sexual violence eradication bill, the amendment to Law No. 5/2014 on civil servants, the palm oil bill, the second amendment to Law No. 23/1999 on Bank Indonesia (BI) and the second amendment to Law No. 21/2011 on the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

The House’s sluggish performance in the fifth sitting period has drawn criticism from many quarters, including the Indonesian Parliament Watch (Formappi). The legislative watchdog has blasted the House for its performance.

“The lack of productivity may result in them not reaching their target this year,” Formappi executive director Sebastian Salang said.

In the fourth sitting period, the House failed to pass any bills. The highest achievement was in the third sitting period, when the legislature passed four bills.

Ensuring quality, Sebastian said, was not an excuse for slow performance.

The dozen of bills on the priority list are also deemed as too ambitious. Sebastian believes it is impossible for the House to pass all of them by the end of this year.

“It’s too ambitious. The have to change their strategy, otherwise the public will always scrutinize and criticize them,” he added.

Gerindra Party lawmaker Muhammad Syafi’i worries that the Terrorism Law revision, a bill on the priority list currently under deliberation, will not be finished this year, on account of to its complex substance.

“We should not rush it [terrorism bill deliberation] because the bill is very sensitive. We must be careful with the deliberation process,” Syafi’i said recently.

House Speaker Ade Komarudin, who previously expressed optimism that the lawmakers could reach the target, seems to have softened his stance, saying that it would depend on the performance of each commission.

“We’ll try [to make it]. We’ll see later,” Ade said.
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