We need firm decisions and action, Mr. President!

Friday, June 02, 2006 Vincent Lingga, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Five months into his second year in office, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has yet to grow on his job.
Seemingly failing to learn from his failure to establish a national economic council early on in his presidency in late 2004, Yudhoyono is about to set up an economic advisory task force within his executive office in charge of advising him and monitoring economic policy execution.

What then was the point of the "big bang" reshuffle of his economic team the President made with great fanfare last December when he appointed the highly respected economist Boediono as his chief economic minister?

What the President really needs is not another long list of economic advice nor economic advisers, but an effective economic management center that can quickly fix problems by executive fiat at the highest level.

The President and his economic ministers already have thick bundles of policy recommendations, reform measures designed on the basis of accurate diagnoses of our economic problems by the national business community, national and foreign economists, foreign chambers of commerce, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and several other well-known economic think tanks.

Many of the policy recommendations have been translated into impressive sets of infrastructure and investment reform measures that were introduced in the first quarter, and another package of reforms in the financial sector is in the pipeline, slated to be launched this month.

The biggest problem lies in the day-to-day management of the policy implementation. What is outstandingly missing is an effective system of fast decision-making to address implementation problems.

Hence, what Yudhoyono urgently needs is an effective economic management center within his executive office that can quickly decide and act firmly with utmost urgency to fix economic problems, remove barriers to reform implementation and coordinate inter-ministerial action.

The center should function like an operation room in a war-like situation, where economic ministers, top bureaucrats, top economists and leaders of business associations discuss and decide on concerted efforts to fix any economic problems.

An effective decision-making and management center would be more capable of setting the right priority for action and building up a favorable public-opinion environment and a national political consensus on the correct sequencing of economic reforms.

Unlike most Cabinet sessions on economic matters at present, which seem more perfunctory than business-like, meetings at the center should run as brainstorming sessions that bring the country's political leadership face-to-face with representatives of the main economic agents, all determined to translate political resolve into real action.

Any economic issues, such as barriers to exports and investment, credit financing for small and medium-size enterprises, port clearance, imports, tax assessment and even such matters as privatization of state companies would be settled quickly at the highest level.

Judging from his managerial capability, Vice President Jusuf Kalla is well positioned and greatly qualified to run such a center, but he is not the right man for the job. Given his business background and the widely diversified business conglomerate his family owns, Kalla would constantly be suspected of potential conflicts of interest.

Therefore it is the President who should personally chair this economic management center, but he should give a full mandate to his chief economic minister Boediono to conduct the daily operation of the center and coordinate inter-ministerial action.

Yudhoyono needs only to attend weekly or monthly decision-making meetings at the center. His personal presence at such meetings would keep all officials on their toes because they would have to be ready with answers to any questions the President or business leaders might ask.

The right management and coordination by chief economic minister Boediono, and the support of business leaders represented in the decision-making process, would create a conducive environment for economic policy implementation.

This kind of decision-making mechanism would make bureaucratic action more important than bureaucratic procedures and rigidities, resolving problems by executive fiat on the spot.