State Minister of National Development Planning / Head of National Development Planning Agency SPECIAL SESSION REMARKS OF STATE MINISTER OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING / HEAD OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING AGENCY IN REGIONAL FORUM ON REINVENTING GOVERNMENT IN ASIA Borobudur Hotel-Jakarta, 15 November 2007 The honorable State Minister of Administrative Reform Republic of Indonesia, The honorable Director of United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The honorable Director of United Nations Governance Center, The honorable state representatives from Asian countries, Distinguished participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, Assalamu'alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh, Good evening and welcome, It is a pleasure for me to be invited by State Minister of Administrative Reform, Director of United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), and Director of United Nation Government Centre (UNGC) and give welcome remarks to the important event of the Regional Forum on Reinventing Government in Asia. This is a strategic event for sharing among Asian countries in governance issues. It is expected that within this forum, we can share similar perspective to strengthen and build trust to government on performing good governance principles. Therefore, I would like to convey and share
steps taken by Indonesian government for better governance bureaucracy in both national and local level. Honorable state representatives, ladies and gentlemen, Currently, efforts to build people s trust to the government have been one of core issue in many countries to prosper the citizens. The trust is important for people to support and be actively engaged in development programs. Meanwhile, without the trust and apathetic attitude from the citizen, the government will be weaken, lack of support and fail to perform its core function: increase the people s prosperity. In order to build trust, started in Reform Era of 1998, Indonesian government has taken strategic steps to fix political, social, and economic lives, notably: 1. Political Reform, based on the Indonesian Constitution of 1945, the Fourth Amendment, it states that: a) The Direction of State Guidelines (GBHN) is exchanged into the vision and mission of the elected president as in accordance to Law no. 23/2003 on Presidential Election, b) The direct election of the President and Heads of Regions (Governor, Head of District and Mayor). Thus, vision, mission and programs of the President and Heads of Regions were delivered in campaign process and performed while being elected. 2. Reform in Regional Governance, by enactment of Law 22/1999 on Regional Governance and Law 25/1999 on Fiscal Balance between Central and Regional Government, which amended by Law no. 32 and 33 in 2004, the era of decentralization and regional autonomy, has begun. The granting of such broad autonomy to the regions is directed to accelerate the public welfare efforts through the improvement of the service, empowerment and the role of the public. 3. Reform in State Budget Performance, with the enactment of 3 Laws: Law 17/2003 on State Budget; Law 1/2004 on State Treasury, and Law 15/2004 on Supervision and Responsibility of Managing State Budget, all are intended for better performance based-budgeting to governance. To synergize such laws, another Law- Law 25/2004 on National Planning Development System has been developed also based on performance, followed by enactment of government regulations as guidelines. The improvement of managing the state budget is as a part of bureaucratic reform that the government of Indonesia going through. The implementation of reforms stated above is still in the process, but has showed the effectiveness, although it still needed to be 2
improved. However, such reforms will not be success without a comprehensive bureaucratic reform, which is not only in managing state budget, both in national and local level. Therefore, the governments also include the bureaucratic reform in the institutions, management and human resources based on good public governance values (GPG). This allows principles of openness, accountable, effectively, and efficient principles, based on Law enforcement and citizen participation. The commitment of Indonesian government to implement bureaucratic reform shows in the Medium-Term National Development Planning (RPJM-N) 2004-2009, with one priority among others is to implement good public governance as to maximize the governance management. Indonesian government realizes that the successful of governance management is based on the quality of government management. Based on the experience of Indonesia at the end of 90s, the crisis time was also created from the weak implementation of good public governance, showed by lack of productivity, quality and innovation of government performance at that time. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, The target for implementing good public governance in public sector as stated in the Medium-Term National Development Planning (RPJM-N) 2004-2009, are as follows: (1) reducing of corruption practice in bureaucracy, (2) clean government institution and management with efficiency, effective, transparent, professional and accountable, (3) erasing discriminative regulation to marginal groups, (4) increasing public participation in public policy, and (5) guarantying consistency of central and local regulation as long as not against the law above it. Efforts to achieve the target are performed by three steps as follows: First, corruption eradication practices by: 1. Implementing good governance principles in every level of governance and activities; 2. Sanction to the corruptors based on regulation; 3. Increasing effectively oversight by coordination and internal and external oversight synergize with citizen oversight; 4. Increasing work culture of official with morality, professional, productive and accountable; 5. Accelerating the follow-up implementation on result of oversight and 3
report; 6. Increasing the empowerment of people and business by eradicating corruption, collusion and nepotism culture. Second, to increase the quality of state administration taken by: 1. Re-managing the function of government institution in order to be effective, proportional-structured, adaptive and responsive; 2. Increasing effectivity and efficiency in management and procedure in every level of government; 3. Managing and increasing the capacity of human resources in order to be more professional in accordance with tasks and function for better service improvement; 4. Increasing the prosperity of official based on performances; 5. Optimizing development and advantage e-government of state documents/archives in performing governmental task and function. Third, to increase citizen empowerment in development taken by: 1. Increasing the quality of public services especially basic, regular and specialized services; 2. Increasing the citizen capacity to fulfill the needs, to participate in development process and to oversight the governance; 3. Increasing transparency, participation, and service quality by access and information disburse. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, In the last three (3) years, the implementation of bureaucratic reform has shown improvement. For example in implementing public services, some regional government has shown good performance of sector investment, health and education, as in Gorontalo province, Pare-Pare districts, Balikpapan city, Solok district, Sragen district and Jembrana district. The efforts that have been done by such local or regional governments have motivated other local governments to reform its bureaucracy. Meanwhile in procurement process, the government has implementing e-procurement in institutions of central and regional governments for more transparent and accountable process in procurement. People show supports in the process. Another important mark has also shown in pilot projects as implementation of Island of Integrity model in government institution as part of good governance principles and best practices for other institutions. Related to the bureaucracy reform in center government, 4
the government has enacted policy for 3 strategic institutions, namely Ministry of Finance, the Supreme Audit Board, and the Supreme Court as a pilot project of bureaucracy reform. The reforms are increasing remuneration of employees, with the improvement on institution management, increasing the human resource capability, and also improvement in performance supervision. The government has also maximized development planning and budget management process based on Laws, notably Law No. 25/2004, Law No 17/2003, Law No 1/2004, Law No 15/2004, and government regulation No. 8/2006. Such laws give mandate to implement accountability performance in budgeting and governance process. To support the oversight of performances, reorganizing management is also taken in oversight body such as in the Supreme Audit Board as external institution, and also internal oversight within the institution. Capacity building has also given for auditors especially in oversight competency. This step is taken to increase the quality of the auditor and state budget implementer for minimizing and misuse the state budget. In relation with corruption eradication, Indonesian government has commitment to combat against corruption and execute the corruptors, by bureaucratic reform, law enforcement and sanction for corruptors. Honorable state representatives, ladies and gentlemen, Among the steps taken by Indonesian government has shown commitment and political will from the government to enhance the process of development. Good public governance has been the demands of people and government in both global and regional policies. In line with the reform needs in politics, law and bureaucracy, Indonesia has realized and shows critical thinking on the importance of transparency, law enforcement, participation and accountability in the process of governance management. Therefore, the government must show integrity and credibility in the performances. From the global perspective, in order to achieve good public governance, commitment between governments and international agreement has included issues of corruption eradication, environment management, enhance the quality of education and health, and poverty alleviations, has shown in documents, such as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and others. I expect efforts taken by Indonesian government and other governments to achieve good public governance are in line with commitment of international society and give significant 5
contribution to each country and relations among countries. With my remarks delivered in this forum, I expect this would give another insight to further discussion. Thank you and have a fruitful conference. Wassalamualaikum Warrahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. Jakarta, 14 November 2007 State Minister of National Development Planning H. Paskah Suzetta The honorable Director of United Nation Government Center (UNGC), Mr. Myungsoo Cho, Distinguished state representatives from Asian countries, participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, 6
First of all, I would like to apologize on behalf of the State Minister of National Development Planning/Head of National Planning Development Agency, for not being able to attend to this important gathering held by the Ministry of Administrative Reform incorporation with United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affair (UNDESA) and United Nations Government Center (UNGC), the Regional Forum on Reinventing Government in Asia, because of he must attend to another important meeting. Anyway, he gives his sincere gratitude and honor to be invited to this Forum. On behalf of the minister I will give his remark in this special session on Reinventing Government Programmes in Indonesia. 7