Public Sector Reform in Indonesia

By: Parawansa Assoniwora

Public sector reform is efforts at changing the methods of managing, controlling and accounting for the concrete production of such services. Associated with the issue, there are at least two key-questions that need to be addressed on public sector reforms in Indonesia. There are to say, how government’s bureaucracy interpret the reforms, and how people present their political rights within a strong civil society.

Firstly, government is an organization that has authority to make laws or regulations on behalf of state. Because of the authority, the organization has competence to take full controls towards public services. The public services which are presented to public interests have to be well-managed. That is why a main point is how accountability and transparency of the organization is in managing the public services, so called good governance principles. In addition, one of main characteristics of the public services is that it should stand up for the poor.

Secondly, not only do the reforms need the good governance principles, but it must be also supported by a strong civil society. The strong civil society refers to the people’s abilities to provide their political controls associated with the public services. A key-word dealt with this is how the people take a part in policy process, so called political participation. In other words, the participation becomes a civil power in controlling and presenting people’s views related to their interests in the policy process.

Here, what I am going to say is that the public sector reforms in Indonesia at least have to contain two main pillars. These are to say, good governance and strong civil society. Both pillars must be a unity. In other words, the public sector reform will achieve its goal if good governance and strong civil society can be resulted at the same moment. However, if a subsequent question is where we begin, I will say that the strong civil society can create good governance, otherwise the good governance is nothing without supporting a strong civil society.