Government drafts service standards

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

The government is drafting manuals on minimum service standards for 11 powers decentralized to regions and mayoralties under regional autonomy laws.

Minimum service standards, which are regulated under Government Regulation No. 65/2005 on public service, must be adhered to by the relevant powers in regencies and municipalities throughout the country.

"At the national level, all state departments and non-departmental agencies are required to complete the first manuals by the end of 2008 so the government regulation can come into effect in 2009," the Director for the development of regional capacity and performance at the Home Ministry, Eko Subowo, told a workshop on minimum service standards here over the weekend.

The manuals, to be issued through decrees from relevant ministers, will outline minimum service standards in the decentralized areas of health, education, transportation, the environment, forestry, manpower, marine resources, mining and energy, disaster management, agriculture and plantations.

Citing an example, Eko said a minimum service standard in the education sector would require 95 percent of children aged between seven and 12 years to attend elementary school, 90 percent of teaching staff to be qualified and 95 percent of elementary school graduates to continue to junior high school.

He said the minimum service standards were compulsory and would be financed with general and special (autonomy) funds from the state budget. Regions would also have to improve their financial and resource capacities to achieve the minimum service standards, he added.

"The manuals will be used as measurement tools in determining autonomy funds and there will be serious consequences for regions which are unable to reach minimum service standards. They will be liquidated or merged with other financially-strong regions," he said, adding that the government would issue a regulation for the evaluation of the performances of autonomous regions.

The minimum service standard regulation also stipulates that priority must be given to development in areas such as education, health, transportation and the environment to protect the constitutional rights of the public and provide good governance in return for the taxes they pay to the state.

Chief spokesman for the Home Ministry Saut Situmorang said the policy of minimum service standards has prompted the government and the House of Representatives to revise the current budget policy to ensure future state budgets will allocate at least a half of the budget for development expenditure.

"The government will be required to allocate more funds for development programs and public expenditure and as long as it is unable to do so, it will certainly fail to achieve good political results," he said.

Saut said the government and the House were still drafting legislation on the public service and administration systems which would allow members of the public to file lawsuits against public offices and officials who fail to provide services in accordance with the minimum service standards.