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Proposal for new ministry to oversee police faces pushback
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This is a drill: Personnel from the National Police’s antiterrorism squad, Densus 88, take part in an exercise in Lebak Bulus MRT Station in South Jakarta on Wednesday. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
T
he National Resilience Institute's (Lemhannas) proposal to establish a ministry in charge of overseeing the National Police is receiving pushback from critics who fear it may politicize the law enforcement institution.
In his year-end statement, Lemhannas governor Agus Widjojo proposed the establishment of a so-called homeland security ministry that would oversee the police, which, under prevailing law, directly reports to the president.
The country, Agus said, lacked a ministerial-level institution commissioned to identify challenges and formulate policies concerning domestic security.
“The vacuum in the domestic security policy-making process requires the establishment of a political institution at the ministerial level with a mandate to formulate domestic security policies,” Agus said in a live-streamed news conference last week.
He then pointed to the Defense Ministry, which has its own authority in defense policy formulation and administrative issues.
Agus initially said that such authority could be placed under the Home Ministry, as domestic security was part of its domain, before suggesting the establishment of an entirely new ministry – the homeland security ministry – to ease the burden of the former.
The idea takes reference from the Department of Homeland Security in the United States, Agus said.
