Jakarta – The government continues to encourage openness of information as a strategic step in strengthening governance as well as an effort to prevent corruption.
This was emphasized by the Assistant Deputy for Coordination of Public Service Improvement of the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, Agung Pratistho, in the Coordination Meeting for Strengthening Information Service Governance.
According to Agung, the provision and service of public information carried out proactively and responsively is very important to strengthen the governance of information services.
“The importance of providing and serving public information proactively and responsively as well as efforts to strengthen information service governance in order to provide better, more transparent information services that are oriented towards the needs of the community,” he explained.
However, he highlighted that public information services at the regional level still face a number of obstacles.
Among them are low human resource capacity, suboptimal function of the Information and Documentation Management Officer (PPID), weak documentation and archive systems, and the lack of digital integration of information services.
“Local governments are required not only to provide information, but also to have an effective, structured information governance system that is in accordance with the principles of openness,” said Agung.
He added that strengthening the information service system is a systematic step to improve the procedures and quality of resources used by local governments.
“With good collaboration between the central government, related institutions, and the community, it is hoped that information disclosure can run more effectively, transparently, and increase community participation in making appropriate policies and decisions,” he said.
The same thing was conveyed by the Deputy Chairman of the Central Information Commission, Arya Sandhiyudha. He called the openness of public information as the core of democracy and good governance.
“The importance of collaboration and roles not only from government elements but from all parties, be it from civil society, the press, NGOs, or business actors to help increase their role in the openness of public information,” he said.
Meanwhile, in North Kalimantan, similar efforts were also made through public information disclosure coordination meetings involving all Regional Government Organizations.
The Assistant for General Administration of the North Kalimantan Provincial Secretariat, Pollymaart Sijabat, emphasized openness of information as the main pillar of good governance.
“This is an instrument for public oversight of the running of regional government,” said Pollymaart.
He stated that the North Kalimantan Provincial Government is targeting to enter the informative category this year.
“We have to improve. Don’t just participate in monitoring and evaluation, but really improve the quality of information disclosure,” he said.***
