T

he absence of a solid legal framework for the Jakarta administration’s One District One Center of Entrepreneurship (OKE OCE) entrepreneurship program has raised public concerns over the accountability of the program, which is set to spend Rp 82 billion (US$5.6 million) of the city’s budget this year.

The program was implemented based on Jakarta Governor Instruction No. 152/2017 on the development of entrepreneurship; not a gubernatorial decree or the regional regulation, which offer a stronger legal basis to implement a policy.

A governor instruction is usually issued to instruct city agencies or civil servants.

The instruction for the OKE OCE program outlines the tasks of city agencies, mayors, district heads and subdistrict heads to support the entrepreneurship program, without providing further details.

OK OCE Movement Community (PGO) chairman Faransyah Jaya has said that Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan would soon issue a governor regulation on the OK OCE program.

The regulation will also serve as a basis for a cooperation agreement between the city administration and PGO, he added.

The OK OCE program is currently being implemented by several city agencies, with a budget coming from the Cooperatives, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and Trade (KUMKMP) Agency in each municipality and one regency in Jakarta.

However, the syllabus and the coaching programs are made by the PGO, which also provides coaches and trainers who are paid from the city budget.

Faransyah said the PGO was a voluntary group that had been running the OK OCE since Anies’ campaign period for last year’s gubernatorial election.

“We promised that time that we would run the program regardless of the election results. We have been working independently to support the program. The PGO doesn’t receive any money from the city administration,” Faransyah told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

The city’s Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Agency will determine the PGO’s status and decide whether it would be paid by city administration for its services, he added.

Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno said earlier that he would keep the PGO separate from the city administration, saying that OKE OCE already had some 40,000 participants and the PGO should remain independent so it could keep up its good work.

“I don’t want to see a decline of the PGO’s efforts if it worked for [the administration],” Sandiaga said, adding that the city administration and the PGO would legalize their partnership in a cooperation agreement.

According to a public policy expert from Padjadjaran University, in Bandung, West Java, Yogi Suprayogi, the Jakarta administration should have made a gubernatorial decree or a regional regulation that outlined the official guidelines for the program before it even started.

Because OKE OCE is the flagship program of Anies and Sandiaga and has used a sizeable portion of the city budged, it should adhere to regional regulations and fall under the scrutiny of the Jakarta Council, Yogi said.

“The allocation of the city budget for the program will be more detailed once it is regulated under regional regulations.”

Echoing his statement, the executive director of Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD), Robert Endi Jaweng, said a regional regulation should be made for the sustainability of the program — which could easily be eliminated once Anies and Sandiaga finished their term.

Meanwhile, from some 40,000 people registered in the program, only 27,000 have participated
in a series of training sessions conducted by the city administration.

So far, 150 OK OCE participants have received loans ranging from Rp 3 million to Rp 10 million from Bank Jakarta.