Press Release

Jakarta, Wednesday 22 March 2017

Buying and Selling Positions: The Betrayal of Nawacita and the Loss of Bureaucratic Reform

At the beginning of 2017, the public was shocked by news regarding the buying and selling of positions in the Klaten Regency government. The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named the Regent and Head of the Middle School Section of the Klaten Regency Education Service as suspects, while several other names are still under investigation.

Moreover, the DPR RI intends to weaken supervision over the recruitment of government employees by revising the ASN Law, which is suspected to abolish the State Civil Apparatus Committee (KASN), which is only two years old. In fact, if we look at its performance, KASN has handled 555 cases, of which 406 have been completed and 149 cases are still in the process of being resolved.

Of course, this condition has tarnished President Jokowi’s enthusiasm for reforming the bureaucracy as stated in the Nawacita Program.

“2. (two) Make the government not absent by building clean, effective, democratic and trustworthy governance, by giving priority to efforts to restore public trust in democratic institutions by continuing the consolidation of democracy……….”

“4. (four) Rejecting weak countries by reforming the system and law enforcement that is free of corruption, dignified and trustworthy.”

Of course, the two priority agendas above should be the basis for the central and regional governments to commit to strengthening a recruitment and supervision system that is professional and free from KKN (Corruption, Collusion & Nepotism) in order to create quality ASN (State Civil Servants).

If the revision of the ASN Law is passed, the KASN institution will be eliminated, this will have an impact on:

1. Weakening the monitoring function of the merit system will open up loopholes to foster cases of corruption and buying and selling of positions in the regions.
2. The dissolution of KASN will set a bad precedent for the government’s commitment to consistently implementing the ASN Law which has been included in the President’s Nawacita agenda.
3. Decreases the quality of public services because the bureaucracy does not have a service mindset but is only loyal to the leadership.
4. The increasing strength of political intervention and politicization of ASN and bureaucracy, because one of KASN’s duties is to monitor the neutrality of ASN.

Based on this, the #bureaucratic reform coalition recommends:

1. Take firm action against central or regional governments who are proven to be buying and selling positions, because this will have an impact on the decline in the quality of bureaucracy and public services.
2. Rejects the dissolution of KASN as stated in the ASN Bill.
3. Strengthen KASN institutions by clarifying KASN’s authority in carrying out supervision.

KASN also needs to be strengthened through a knowledge-based approach, prioritizing the importance of understanding the merit system through outreach or campaigns on initiative, accountability and the benefits of the system. So that central and regional government agencies are aware and understand the importance of implementing a merit system and benefit from it.

Contact Person:
Yenny Sucipto (Fitra), 0813-3311-1446
Rohidin Sudarno (PATTIRO), 0878-8584-2819