Hence, the new taskforce, officially called the Presidential Unit for the Supervision and Control of Development (UKP3), is well suited to that job, and Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, a well-experienced technocrat, bureaucrat and field manager is the right man to lead that unit.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had not elaborated the job description of UKP3, but we can already assume what kind of trouble-shooting tasks the unit will execute. Yudhoyono asserted last week “the unit will serve as my eyes, ears and hands with responsibilities that will not overlap with the coordinating ministers”.

 This means UKP3 will execute the second tagline (catchword) of his Cabinet — “Debottlenecking, Acceleration and Enhancement”.  The first tagline is “Change and Continuity” and the third is “Unity, Togetherness We Can”. Being a troubleshooter or a fixer, the unit will not address overarching problems but will work only on specific issues related to the implementation of a particular policy or project.

The President is fully aware that one of his biggest problems lies in the day-to-day management of policy implementation. What has been missing is an effective system of fast decision-making to fix implementation problems.

The center therefore would function like an operation room in a war-like situation to help the President detect and attack specific problems besetting the execution of a particular policy or a major development project that particular ministers are not able to resolve by themselves due either to issues of overlapping authorities or bureaucratic inertia.

Certainly an effective decision-making and management center will be more capable of setting the right priority of actions and building up a favorable public-opinion environment. Since infrastructure, energy, food security and investment promotion top the Cabinet’s list of priorities, the unit will most likely focus its attention on policy or project-implementation problems in these areas.

We reckon Kuntoro and his trouble-shooting unit will play a crucial role in removing the land-acquisition bottlenecks that have been hindering the construction of several free highway projects, power transmission lines and the new international airport project in Medan, North Sumatra.

Also high on his shooting target should be the grossly inefficient logistics that have hindered the economic inter-linkages between the islands and have made the country’s exports less competitive.

Making some breakthroughs in logistics to reduce transport costs, improve port-handling and reliable delivery schedules is vital to link up more areas in the country with global supply chains and consequently make them more attractive to  investments.  

Given the wide skepticism about the new Cabinet, the President badly needs some major, concrete achievements during his first 100 days in administration to gain public confidence. The President needs public confidence to build strong public support for the series of reform measures he must implement to enhance good governance in the public sector, including anticorruption drives, and remove regulatory and bureaucratic barriers to doing business.

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