T

he Indonesian Ombudsman has revealed its summary on public services in 2018, highlighting poor performances in several sectors from disaster mitigation to health services based on complaints filed by the public.

The ombudsman’s survey revealed that regional administrations were the most reported institutions with 39.6 percent, followed by the police (12.8 percent), government institutions/ministries (11.1 percent), the National Land Agency (9 percent) and state-owned or regional-owned enterprises (7.3 percent).

Within the period from October 2017 to September 2018, the ombudsman received 8,456 reports filed by citizens, an increase from 7,952 reports during the corresponding period the previous year. Of the reports received, 6,789 or a little over 80 percent of the total complaints had been followed up while the remainder were being processed.

Around 16.2 percent of the reports were on agrarian or land conflicts, followed by police-related issues (12.6 percent), employment (11.5 percent) and education (10.6 percent).

Persistent problems that have plagued the nation’s public services include delayed settlement (35.3 percent), breach of procedure (23.8 percent) and failure to provide service (17.2 percent).

Ombudsman deputy chairwoman Lely Pelitasari said these persistent problems had mostly been found to occur in areas relating to law enforcement, specifically within the institution of the police, land conflict and basic services including in education, disaster mitigation and national health care.

Ombudsman commissioner Alvin Lie highlighted the poor performance in disaster mitigation across the country, which saw its deadliest year in a decade in 2018 with over 4,000 deaths caused by different disasters including earthquakes and tsunamis.

Last year, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake jolted the island of Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) in August causing over 500 fatalities. In September, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake followed by a tsunami hit Central Sulawesi, killing at least 2,100 people. In December, at least 437 people died as a result of the Sunda Strait tsunami.

“The early warning system was neither functioning nor effective. The procurement and maintenance of tsunami detection devices has also been hampered by the limited budget allocation,” he said.

He also pointed to the lack of programs to educate citizens living in disaster-prone areas, which left them vulnerable and underprepared for disasters.

Local public officials, whose job it is to provide reliable information during emergency situations, had also often failed to perform their duties, Alvin said.

In a recent case, residents of Gunungsitoli district in North Sulawesi decided to leave their homes on Jan. 10 after hearing information that a tsunami would hit their area. However, it turned out the news was false.

“There is no reliable information system,” Alvin said.

Ombudsman commissioner overseeing education Ahmad Suaedy highlighted maladministration during university rector elections and rampant plagiarism as among the problems that tainted the education sector last year.

Several universities including State Islamic University (UIN) Malang in East Java, Semarang State University (Unnes) in Central Java, Halu Oleo University in Southeast Sulawesi, and Manado State University (UNIMA) in South Sulawesi, are currently being investigated by the ombudsman over allegations of plagiarism.

Ahmad further criticized a number of universities for their slow response to alleged crimes and other violations that had occurred in their college communities or that involved members of their community.

In the most recent case, a female student of Gajah Mada University, Yogyakarta, who goes by the pseudonym Agni, was allegedly raped by a fellow student during a field assignment in 2017. The case was only recently blown up following a report published by an UGM student magazine. The university management has promised to follow up the report and has taken steps but no results have been announced as of yet.

“The progress of the case is slow and [the handling] not thorough. It has been over a year and the case hasn’t been solved until today,” he said.

In the health sector, Dadan Suparjo, another ombudsman commissioner, highlighted the healthcare authorities’ failure to achieve the target of 95 percent coverage by 2019. According to ombudsman data, national healthcare coverage has reached 82.49 percent.

“Alleged discriminatory services and poor facilities in certain regions have been mentioned [by members of the public] as reasons why many people have been reluctant to join the scheme,” he said.