T

he government’s lack of supervision has knocked special autonomy in Papua and West Papua off track, leaving residents in the midst of poverty and a conflict that is seemingly never ending, experts say.

Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) researcher Adriana Elisabeth said that the central government may have deliberately neglected local governments in Papua, arguing that it was necessary for central government to assist and mentor local government officials on development planning.

“Since the early transition years [of Papua’s special autonomy status], there has never been any accompaniment and clear guidance from central government to local Papuans on how they should handle the special autonomy funds,” Adriana said. “This caused special autonomy funds to be not utilized optimally.”

In 2001, the government granted special autonomy status for the province, which was later developed into Papua and West Irian Jaya (also known as West Papua).

The status gave local administrations the authority to manage their own areas with little intervention from central government.

However, the interests of many parties in the resource-rich region have led to unresolved conflicts.

Fatal incidents often occur in Papua province, especially near the mining site of PT Freeport Indonesia.

Adriana argued that Papua’s special autonomy funds might not be fully utilized to improve the lives of local Papuans, saying that in reality the hefty budget “was channeled to the bureaucrats and political elites”.

Vidhyandika Perkasa, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said that mentoring and assistance from central government were imperative, as most Papuan administration officials responsible for managing budgets were still “clueless” on how to develop their region.

“The local government officials [in Papua] are still lacking the capacity to deal with their special autonomy status,” Vidhyandika said.

“They have no sufficient knowledge of development management and planning. Consequently, they don’t know what to do with special autonomy funds.”

Vidhyandika went on to explain that local government officials in Papua sometimes mistakenly defined special autonomy funds as the same as local budget funds. “Based on my interviews with Papuan local government officials, there was confusion [on special autonomy funds] as these funds were sometimes muddled with the local budget.”

Besides the local government’s lack of capacity in handling the funds, Vidhyandika suggested tighter supervision of the funds, as he argued that they were extremely prone to fraudulent practices by officials from both central and local governments.

“Corruption spreads from central to local government. In fact, many local government officials from Papua went to Jakarta to lobby the budget planners who play “vital roles” in disbursing [the special autonomy funds] to the Papuans,” Vidhyandika said.

Although experts perceived Papua’s special autonomy funds as “unproductive” in improving the welfare of local Papuans, the government recently approved a 23 percent increase in the budget allotted to Papua’s special autonomy funds for next year.

In the 2012 budget, the provinces of West Papua and Papua would receive Rp 1.64 trillion (US$186.96 million) and Rp 3.8 trillion respectively, which are significant increases from this year’s budget that allotted the two provinces Rp 1.33 trillion and Rp 3.1 trillion respectively.

The disbursement process of Papua’s special autonomy funds was said to be beset with corruption and fraudulent practices, with the government’s lack of supervision being blamed as the root cause.

Between 2001 and 2010, the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) found indications that Rp 4.12 trillion of the Rp 19.12 trillion in special autonomy funds for Papua and West Papua may have been misused or embezzled.

In April, the BPK’s findings also revealed that Rp 1.8 trillion of Papua’s special autonomy funds, which were supposed to be allocated to developing medical and educational infrastructure in Papua, were instead deposited in private bank accounts for “short-term investments”. (sat)