Friday, January 11, 2008 Vincent Lingga, The Jakarta Post
Modesty was the foremost impression of many who met the professor Mohamad Sadli -- despite his role among the nation's decision makers and his wealth of knowledge.
Born in Sumedang, West Java on Jan 10, 1922, he died at the Cikini General Hospital in Central Jakarta late Tuesday at an age of 85.
Born in Sumedang, West Java on Jan 10, 1922, he died at the Cikini General Hospital in Central Jakarta late Tuesday at an age of 85.
Perhaps the most outstanding member of, and spokesman for, the so-called Berkeley Mafia -- the selected group of Indonesian economic scholars educated at the University of California, Sadli was one of the few technocrats who always spoke their mind even under Soeharto's authoritarian rule.
He is survived by his wife Prof. Saparinah Sadli, whom he married in 1954. Former leader of the national women's human rights body, like her husband she was also a professor at the University of Indonesia.
Sadli and his economist colleagues, including Widjojo Nitisastro, Emil Salim, Ali Wardhana and J.B. Sumarlin played a key role in fashioning Indonesia's economic development for more than three decades until the mid-1990s.
Sadli contributed to his nation, more than any other, through his decades at the university and government. He continued contributing to public policy debates long after he left both institutions, through newspaper articles and comments he regularly made until the last few months of his life.
Indeed, few have written more economic and socio-political analyses or have given so generously of their time and energy toward the interests of their nation.
As chairman of the Technical Committee for Capital Investment, the embryo of what is now known as the Capital Investment Coordinating Board, in 1967-1973 Sadli was responsible for promoting foreign direct investment immediately after the enactment of the 1967 foreign investment law (recently replaced by the new investment law).
His impeccable integrity and high ability to candidly and honestly explain the full perspective of Indonesian economic prospects and challenges and its social and political problems has been widely regarded as responsible for regaining foreign investor interest in Indonesia soon after the anti-Western campaign by the then president Sukarno in the mid-1960s.
He simultaneously held another important portfolio as the minister in charge of manpower development in 1971-1973, before being appointed the minister for mining in 1973-1978, after which he had remained outside the government. He continued making his great contribution to the national economy through his lectures and analyses in various newspapers and periodicals.
Different from most of his economist colleagues, Sadli was an engineer, graduating from the School of Engineering at the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta in 1952, before he pursued his graduate economic and engineering studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954-1956 and post graduate economic studies at the University of California in Berkeley. He went on to gain a PhD in economics at the Jakarta School of Economics, University of Indonesia, in Depok in 1957.
It was his engineering background that perhaps enabled Sadli to consistently come up with straight, direct-to-the point answers to almost any economic issues, unlike most other economists who tend to ramble with long explanations and without much substance.
While a champion of the market economy as the most efficient mechanism for resource allocation for the benefit of the people, Sadli recognized the constantly competing camps of market efficiency and social justice, comprehending the inter-linked nature of economics and politics.
For more than four decades until 2006, he still wrote regularly for Kompas and Tempo and Business News bulletin and became perhaps the most widely-quoted analyst, because he made himself available to journalists with his valuable commentaries on economic and political issues.
Sadli was one of the technocrats who saw the great importance of developing adequate capabilities for industrial associations to hold policy dialogs with the government on an equal footing.
On an invitation, he became the secretary general at the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the early 1980s. There he remained for almost 10 years, acting as the chief of the chamber's policy think-tank (research department) which, from time to time, made policy recommendations and came out with sharp analyses of government policies and state budgets.
Rest in peace Pak Sadli.
