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Omnibus bill may reduce efficiency, regional incomes: Experts
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Hundreds of students, workers and artists grouped under the People’s Movement Alliance gathered on March 9 to hold a “grand meeting” on the streets in Yogyakarta to stop the deliberation of the controversial job creation omnibus bill. (Antara/Andreas Fitri Atmoko )
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span id="docs-internal-guid-0d7de1a8-7fff-ce38-d7fb-671d794580aa">The omnibus bill on job creation will weaken the regional administration through inefficient governance and a potential reduction in regional incomes, experts and a lawmakers have warned.
With the bill centralizing business permits processing and taking away several regional authorities -- causing an accumulation of power in the hands of the central government, questions linger over whether it can carry all the new tasks.
“The spirit of decentralization through regional autonomy is to boost efficient governance by bringing the service closer to the public,” researcher at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) Riza Annisa Pujarama said in a public discussion on Friday.
Researcher Charles Simabura of Andalas University’s Center for Constitutional Studies said the bill was a setback of decentralization, particularly since the prevailing 2014 Regional Administration Law already limited the mayor and regent’s authority. The law, instead, put more authorities in the governor’s hands.
He mentioned the forest fire in Pekanbaru, Riau as an example in which the city could not immediately respond as the mayor had no authority over forest management. It instead belongs to the provincial administration.
Now the central government has been given even more powers as the bill amends several prevailing laws related to the regional authority.
In particular, it revises provisions on regional bylaws in the 2014 law on regional administration and gives the president the authority to revoke bylaws.
