What a striking difference between the executive and legislative branches of the government. On one side, the House of Representatives has been wasting taxpayers’ money on protracted squabbles less than one month after its installation, with the coalition of opposition parties continuing to pursue the politics of vengeance for the losing presidendial candidate Prabowo Subianto.
Prabowo’s coalition of opposition parties and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s supporting coalition remained deadlocked in a fight for the leadership positions of the working commissions at the House. On the other side, President Jokowi and his Working Cabinet immediately set themselves to work hard at fulfilling the needs of the people.
Vincent Lingga- The Jakarta Post | Editorial | Sun, November 09 2014, 12:49 PM
Early this week, Jokowi launched a newly-designed social assistance program to protect the most vulnerable groups of people from the inflationary impact of a series of painful reforms the government will soon launch to prevent the public sector from going into bankruptcy and to lay a stronger foundation for the economy. The social assistance program has been designed to shift the fuel subsidy from consumptive to productive use and at the same time to promote financial inclusion by using mobile-banking mechanisms to deliver compensation funds for almost 16 million poor households.
The concept is to move away from the commodity-based subsidy to a better targeted people-based subsidy focusing on the needs of poor farmers and fishermen.
Simply lowering the fuel-price subsidy by 40 percent would save billions of dollars that could be allocated for the expanded social protection programs and badly-needed infrastructure development.
Reform is usually difficult during good times when economic growth is robust and the financial market is optimistic because the government and politicians become complacent. This was the situation in Indonesia between 2010 and early 2013 when structural reforms virtually stalled.
But the economic conditions inherited by the government of Jokowi, although not critical yet, are already quite bad, with the state budget and current account being threatened by widening deficits caused by rising oil imports and weak commodity exports.
Hence it is a good time now to bite the bullet and launch the long-delayed reforms. This is the momentum that the Jokowi government seized by launching the newly-designed social assistance programs to cushion the most vulnerable segments of the people from the short-term pains likely to be inflicted by the upcoming fuel-price increase.
Earlier last week, only one day after installing his Cabinet, Jokowi launched a national campaign of bureaucratic reform initially focusing on the streamlining of business and investment licensing. He made an impromptu inspection of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) to proclaim his commitment to making things quite easy for doing business in Indonesia.
Earlier this week, the President gathered all provincial governors in a joint working conference with the Cabinet, discussing the vital importance of private investment in reinvigorating the economy in view of the severely limited fiscal capacity.
Jokowi urged the governors to woo investment by establishing one-stop service centers for investment licensing and gave them one year to complete the reform, or face penalties in the form of smaller fund-transfers from the central government.
In the meantime, Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Indroyono Soesilo announced on Wednesday that the government would soon grant visa-free entrances for visitors from Australia, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea to woo more tourists to Indonesia. The government also is fine-tuning a government regulation to expedite the licensing process for yachts and international cruise ships to Indonesia to one or two days, also to attract more tourists to spend their money on boosting the Indonesian economy.
Likewise, Indroyono added, he is also reviewing the arduous licensing process in the fishing industry to enhance the role of Indonesian companies in the marine-resource industry and at the same time prevent illegal foreign poaching of the fishery resources. These programs will bolster tax and non-tax (license fees) revenues for the government for reinvestment in human resource and physical infrastructure development.
More funds for the provision of the people’s basic needs will be available immediately after the government launches its fuel-energy reform within the next two weeks.
While we feel encouraged at seeing the high pace of the government program, it is quite discouraging to see how the process of selecting the leaders of the House and its commissions has led to a bitter division in the legislature into two seemingly irreconcilable camps.
We had expected high-quality debates on government policy in the House after the opposition parties repeatedly affirmed their intention to play the role of an effective check-and-balance mechanism.
What we instead observed is a misguided political fight between the party elites to maintain their privileged positions at the expense of the common people’s interests. The coalition of opposition parties seemed intent only to harass the Jokowi government. We are flabbergasted to see how the six parties within the opposition coalition have allowed themselves to be used for the egotistical agenda of their leaders.
Fortunately, though, the common people seem indifferent or simply cynical about the childish squabbles in the House. There is no similar sentiment at the grassroots level. The current conflict in the legislature has much to do with the immaturity of the leaders of the opposition parties.
