By: Bagus Prasetyo )*
The length of the bureaucratic structure will certainly have a negative impact on society, last year President Jokowi once said there would be a need for restructuring so that the echelon ranks were not too long and convoluted.
One of the priority agenda of the Jokowi-Ma’ruf Government is the simplification of bureaucracy. In general, the buildup of bureaucracy will result in the length of the licensing process, the complexity of administrative procedures and the amount of costs that must be incurred by the people.
What was delivered by Jokowi in his speech is certainly an interesting thing, where the speech reflects President Jokowi’s vision to continue development in improving the welfare, prosperity and justice of the Indonesian people.
The former Governor of DKI Jakarta wants all his assistants in the Indonesian Cabinet to advance along with the ranks below him to work quickly. Because of that he wanted to cut echelon positions at the Ministry.
President Jokowi also stressed, in the government that he runs in his second period there should not be any kind of delay. He wants acceleration in everything.
For this reason, Jokowi wants echelon cuts to speed up the bureaucracy in every ministry and institution. The fast bureaucratic process, he stressed to the ranks of his cabinet. He also emphasized that Indonesia’s needs at this time were flexible government.
Jokowi also explained that a fast bureaucracy with a straightforward administration must be created immediately. So that in his government can step on the gas.
However, this does not mean that Jokowi will cut the revenue of the State Civil Apparatus (ASN), because the policy of eliminating echelon III-IV is carried out to accelerate the process of bureaucracy in the regions.
The instruction related to bureaucratic pruning by Jokowi was apparently agreed by Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani, where he had rotated a number of employees of the special finance ministry in the ranks of the Fiscal Policy Board (BKF) or echelon III and IV officials as functional officials.
As the manager of state finances, Sri Mulyani said that her party did not need many structural officials, but functional.
In BKF itself, Sri Mulyani has cut echelon III positions by 19 out of 36 positions. Then in echelon IV cut 74 of 124 positions.
In addition, President Jokowi also asked local governments to cut bureaucratic regulations and reforms that hamper investor licensing.
In addition to cutting long and complicated regulations to speed up the licensing process, he also appealed for prospective investors who want to build export-oriented factories and immediately issue licenses.
Bureaucratic pruning is certainly something important, so that matters relating to correspondence including the filing of licenses can be faster and not be convoluted until it can reach four months.
Fatty and bureaucratic bureaucracies naturally tend to be wasteful and corrupt. More than that, it is precisely the obesity of a bureaucracy that can make it difficult for investment to be predicted to boost economic growth. Major plans for expansion of export performance are also hampered.
The impact is clear, for 20 years Indonesia has not been able to solve the fundamental problem, namely the current account deficit and the trade balance deficit.
It was also the cause, that President Jokowi threatened to close down institutions that had inefficient performance and only used up the state budget. Concretely, government agencies that complicate and slow down the licensing and investment processes, both at the central and regional levels, will soon be liquidated.
On different occasions the Minister of Research Technology and Higher Education (Menristekdikti) Mohammad Nasir said inter-agency coordination had been a serious problem in the development of innovation. This is partly due to the interpersonal sectoral ego.
Therefore, the only way to do is to cut regulations which are considered to be able to hamper the government bureaucracy. Over the past 5 years, Nasir claimed to have revoked about 40 ministerial regulations (candy) which were considered to be irrelevant.
Before the simplification of the bureaucracy, Nasir said, to submit a Study Program, the requirements for completing the administration were very numerous and were done manually, but with the bureaucratic pruning, now it only needed 2 weeks.
Bureaucratic pruning is certainly a manifestation of the progress of a country, if it can be accelerated why should it move slowly. Perhaps that is what was in the mind of President Jokowi and his ranks of Ministers in the Advanced Indonesia cabinet.
)* The author is a social political observer