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Jokowi plans to disband 18 state institutions, including Peat Restoration Agency
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President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo speaks during a visit to the national COVID-19 task force office at the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) headquarters in East Jakarta. (Courtesy of Presidential Press Bureau/Muchlis Jr)
T
he State Palace has reaffirmed President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's intention to disband 18 institutions in a bid to ease the burden on the state budget amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with a senior presidential aide revealing several names on the list.
“In simplifying the bureaucracy, the President believes an organizational structure must be highly flexible, adaptive and simpler so that it can hopefully work faster,” Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko said on Tuesday.
He said the Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Ministry was currently reviewing some institutions established under government and presidential regulations, whose tasks and responsibilities could be taken over by other ministries.
He took the example of the National Elderly Commission -- established under Presidential Decree (Keppres) No. 54/2004 -- which would be reviewed to see if its tasks were duplicating those of the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry.
The other one he mentioned was the National Sports Standardization and Accreditation Agency (BSANK), which currently has the authority to develop and monitor the national sports standards and was established under Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 11/2014.
Read also: Jokowi uses reshuffle threat to spur Cabinet into action
Moeldoko also mentioned the Peat Restoration Agency (BRG). Despite its good performance, as he claimed, the institution formed under Perpres No.1/2016 would be reviewed since its functions might collide with those of other institutions.
“It will be reviewed if [the tasks] of the BRG could be handled by the BNPB [the National Disaster Mitigation Agency] for fire mitigation and the Agriculture Ministry for the optimization of peat for agriculture,” Moeldoko said.
President Jokowi previously revealed his plan to dissolve 18 institutions in the near future, following his fiery address at a plenary Cabinet meeting earlier where he threatened to take extraordinary steps if his ministers failed to take the current health crisis seriously.
“If we can divert the budgets to relevant ministries and directorates, why do we have to put those institutions and commissions into service any longer?” Jokowi said on Monday.
A country’s global competitiveness, he noted, would no longer be about big countries defeating small countries but those faster beating those slower.
Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Tjahjo Kumolo said that since Jokowi’s first term in 2014, 24 institutions and commissions had been removed, leaving 96 currently in operation.
