[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Fw: After the Tsunami, An Aceh Surprise: Good Government Wall Street Jounal 2 November 05
- From: "Samudjo" <samudjo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ppiindia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2005 07:50:21 +0700
** Forum Nasional Indonesia PPI India Mailing List **
** Untuk bergabung dg Milis Nasional kunjungi:
** Situs Milis: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ **
** Beasiswa dalam negeri dan luar negeri S1 S2 S3 dan post-doctoral
scholarship, kunjungi
http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com **Hadiah lebaran untuk memotivasi
Sesungguhnya disamping kesukaran ada kemudahan
Samudjo
----- Original Message -----
From: francda
To: Dodie ; Dinu Bumbaru ; Cakep6@xxxxxxx ; Buffy Garlich ; Bulantrisna
Djelantik Soejoto ; Bulantrisna Djelantik Soejoto ; Dolly Hehuwat ; helen lok ;
Helen Lok ; Ilse Nelwan ; imtip ; Joan Hardjono ; Marjie, Endo ; Mary Harahap ;
Mien Rachmad ; Peggy Sunotoredjo ; Tjandra Kerton ; Bambang HIdayat ; Augusto
Villalon ; Adria
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 7:33 PM
Subject: After the Tsunami, An Aceh Surprise: Good Government Wall Street
Jounal 2 November 05
I am just so pleased with this WSJ report that I want to send it to everybody!
Frances
After the Tsunami,
An Aceh Surprise: Good Government
Indonesia's Yudhoyono Tackles
Legendary Corruption In $6 Billion Rebuilding
Suspicious Midnight Meeting
By PETER FRITSCH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 2, 2005; Page A1
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- The tsunami story of fisherman Zamzami is sadly
familiar: A black wave taller than the coastal coconut trees swallowed his
home, his wife and five of his six children, none ever to be seen again.
Less familiar is what the 47-year-old says is beginning to go right in his
life. Government bureaucrats not only let him move back to the coast but asked
his advice on where to build a new dike to best protect the handful of
survivors scraping out a living in his village.
"They asked us what we know and what we wanted," says Zamzami, who like many
Indonesians goes by a single name. "It's taken time to do the talking, but now
we think they are doing the job right."
As Indonesia's massive reconstruction effort here begins to hit its stride, the
nation is trying to build something more enduring amid the ruins of the
tsunami-ravaged northern tip of Sumatra: a model for good, clean government
that listens to its people.
That sounds simple, but it's not what most foresaw for the war-torn region
after 60-foot waves killed at least 130,000 and left homeless many multiples
more last December. Predictions then were dire. Disease would kill thousands
more; the military would seize the opportunity to crush the region's separatist
rebels once and for all; and politicians in Jakarta would contrive ways to
siphon off some of the billions of dollars in foreign aid and impose unworkable
solutions from afar.
The story of Aceh is turning out to be something quite different. It's still
early in the rebuilding process and signs of devastation are everywhere, with
thousands of people still living in tents. But relief efforts have stabilized
the region's health. Peace between the rebel Free Aceh Movement and the
government is holding and stands its best chance in nearly three decades of
bloody confrontation. The corruption synonymous with business as usual here has
yet to appear.
The fact that this is happening in one of the most conservative Muslim regions
in the world's most populous Islamic nation is encouraging to those who feared
the tsunami would deepen the appeal of radical Islam among the dispossessed.
Indonesia has suffered numerous terrorist attacks since 9/11, most recently the
Oct. 1 suicide bombings on the resort island of Bali, which killed 23.
"One of the positives coming out of this tragedy is that this government is
doing things right," says William M. Frej, director for the U.S. Agency for
International Development in Jakarta. "There is a strong focus on transparency
and accountability."
For that, most give credit to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia's
first directly elected leader. The former general, who had earlier led efforts
to get the military out of politics, took office just weeks before the Dec. 26
catastrophe. He swept to victory on a platform of honest and open government.
After the initial shock of the tragedy sank in, Mr. Yudhoyono correctly
identified his biggest long-term problem: how to spend nearly $6 billion in
pledged aid, a tantalizing blank check in a country notorious for corruption.
To squander the goodwill of the international community now would be to negate
his mandate and invite negative comparisons with the cronyism of former
dictator Suharto.
Casting around for ideas, Mr. Yudhoyono did something unusual for an Indonesian
politician. He went outside the cozy club of Jakarta's political class,
consulting Southeast Asia's elder statesman, Lee Kuan Yew. The fastidious
founder of modern Singapore stressed the importance of a professional
reconstruction effort. He also suggested Mr. Yudhoyono consider working with
management consultants to design the right framework, mentioning the name of
McKinsey & Co., according to several people familiar with the matter.
In early February, Mr. Yudhoyono sat down with McKinsey consultant Adam
Schwarz, an American based in Singapore. The president knew Mr. Schwarz from
his previous work as a journalist in Jakarta when he had written about Mr.
Yudhoyono's reform efforts as a general.
That initial contact evolved into an intense and unpublicized behind-the-scenes
collaboration. A dozen McKinsey consultants, working without pay, have crafted
a reconstruction and recovery plan stressing competitive bidding and community
involvement. People familiar with the project value the amount of consulting
donated by McKinsey thus far at around $5 million.
Key to the effort was the creation in April of the Rehabilitation and
Reconstruction Agency for Aceh and Nias, or BRR as it is known by its
Indonesian name, a cabinet-level ministry reporting directly to the president.
The BRR oversees the distribution of government reconstruction funds and helps
coordinate the projects of donors like the World Bank.
The BRR, as drawn up by McKinsey and others, is free of many of the
bureaucratic back alleys where corruption thrives here. By law, its accounts
are open to public scrutiny. Its employees must sign anticorruption contracts
and aren't subject to the meager civil-service pay scale -- a fact resented by
peers in other ministries.
Even its offices are different. Unlike the typical cavernous Indonesian
ministry full of idlers smoking clove cigarettes, the agency's Aceh
headquarters is in a converted middle-class home. Buzzing with activity -- and
relentless tropical flies -- it has the feel of a transplanted Silicon Valley
startup. Twenty-something McKinsey consultants tap on laptops set up in the
foyer as locals come and go to daily prayers. Lunch is self-serve, spooned out
from crocks set out on a table in the middle of the office. Seating is
informal; most grab a spot of empty floor.
The informality belies the agency's power. Crucially, the law establishing the
BRR enables the bulk of funds to go from donor nations and nongovernment
organizations straight to contractors through a competitive bidding and tender
process. That keeps cash off the government budget and away from ministries in
Jakarta, where they could be bogged down in bureaucratic tussles or, worse,
simply disappear.
The BRR's direct control of the roughly $850 million in aid that does pass
through government accounts ensured there would be plenty of powerful
politicians angling to head the agency.
Instead, Mr. Yudhoyono chose 58-year-old Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, a
Stanford-educated engineer and former minister of mines known for his activism
on anticorruption matters. The semi-retired Mr. Kuntoro was not an obvious
choice. He eschews the Javanese ceremony and politesse that infuses politics
here.
Old-line politicians opposed Mr. Kuntoro for the same reason representatives of
McKinsey and donor nations wanted him: impatience and a reputation for
incorruptibility. Mr. Kuntoro offers a typically blunt response when asked how
he responds to ministers unhappy to lose control of reconstruction projects and
the distribution of aid dollars. "I tell them that's your problem," Mr. Kuntoro
says. "You don't like it, tough."
Such talk implies Mr. Yudhoyono's strong backing. That has made it difficult
for often venal bureaucrats and lawmakers to twist the agency's arm. But it
hasn't stopped them from trying.
In early June, a group of legislators tasked with approving the BRR's budget
invited a group of senior agency officials to a midnight meeting at room 2080
of Jakarta's Sahid Jaya hotel, according to people at the BRR. Some BRR
officials worried that they would be pressured to divert contracts to friends
of the legislators. Invited to the impromptu meeting, Mr. Kuntoro says he
waited outside the hotel "because I can't always control my temper."
As it turned out, people familiar with the matter say, the lawmakers wanted the
BRR to support a contract for a tsunami early-warning system they claimed was
being pushed by Kusmayanto Kadiman, Minister for Research and Technology.
Before long, Mr. Kuntoro says he got a cellphone text message from a deputy
relaying the legislators' request. "I called [Mr. Kusmayanto] and threatened to
make [the legislators' claims] public," said Mr. Kuntoro.
He said Mr. Kusmayanto pledged his cooperation and the matter ended there. Mr.
Kusmayanto declined to comment on the incident and referred questions to Idwan
Suhardi, assistant to the Deputy Minister for Research and Technology. Mr.
Suhardi said: "The state ministry for research and technology has never given
any recommendation or favor to any particular company or institution, domestic
or foreign, related to the development of tsunami early warning system."
Whatever the case, the incident helped serve notice on those who would seek
favors from the BRR that the agency wasn't playing by the old rules.
"Look, we Indonesians are famous for corruption," says Mr. Kuntoro. "We have to
get this right."
Getting it right has also meant going slow -- often subjecting the government
to criticism as reconstruction projects wait to get off the ground. It has
taken time to create transparent procedures and competitive bids for contracts;
more time to hire auditors to look over the BRR's shoulder; and yet more time
to do the thankless work of sorting out things like land titles across such a
vast area in which many land owners are dead.
"Could [the reconstruction] have been done any faster and been done well? No,"
says Michael Whiting, head of the United Nations Joint Logistics Centre in Aceh
and a veteran of relief operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. He says the BRR is
effectively helping the more than 120 international aid organizations working
in the region cut through bureaucratic red tape, adding: "They actually have
taken the time to get a good plan, which is more than I can say for other
places I've worked."
That doesn't mean the BRR has acted as swiftly as it could have, a point Mr.
Kuntoro is quick to concede. Jan Egeland, the U.N.'s top emergency relief
coordinator, recently cited the failure to build permanent housing in Aceh.
Some 67,500 people in Aceh still live in tent camps.
To walk the coastal plain of the provincial capital Banda Aceh today is a
surreal experience. Need is everywhere and activity seemingly nowhere. Roads
are ruts strewn with giant tree trunks. There are families in tents and flimsy
wooden structures for whom days are consumed just fetching water. Cranes,
backhoes and dump trucks are conspicuous by their absence. The devastation,
stretching far beyond where the eye can see, suggests the conundrum of just
where to begin.
Then there is paperwork. Eddy Purwanto, a BRR deputy director, says it has
taken seven weeks for the BRR to award a government contract that might have
taken just a week in another ministry. That, he says, is simply because bids
are no longer being rigged.
Time lost to competitive bidding is, however, proving to be money saved. In the
case of one $35 million contract for irrigation and flood-control systems in
Aceh, even the highest bid came in at only 80% of the government's own estimate
for the project's actual cost.
In Banda Aceh, the push to curtail corruption is turning off local bureaucrats,
causing further delays. To address that, the BRR boosted salaries for local
government officials overseeing reconstruction projects by over 20 times normal
scale to as much as $2,000 per month.
Still, the BRR is having a hard time finding project managers. It turns out
local officials can make even more money when bribes are involved. "It's taken
two months to find some project managers," says Sudirman Said, another deputy
director at the BRR. "Usually, finding a bureaucrat to oversee a contract is a
piece of cake."
The biggest cultural shock to the system has been the BRR's willingness to give
local residents a say in what comes next -- a component of the reconstruction
blueprint pushed by McKinsey. Local wishes have long been subordinate to
Indonesia's post-colonial obsession with holding a farflung archipelago
together as a nation.
Juaini, 50 years old, lost all five of her children to the tsunami. She says
she has been surprised to see the likes of Mr. Kuntoro himself inspecting new
homes built to the specifications of her neighbors in the village of Deah Baro
on the outskirts of Banda Aceh. "He's not like the other [government] officials
saying they listen to you but then forget," she says. "People like me can talk
to him easily, openly."
The theme of local self-determination also characterizes Aceh's new peace
agreement -- a key strut of the rebuilding process. The government has agreed
to let the province elect its own leaders and will even let the rebels contest
elections as a political party, something that sticks in the craw of Jakarta
hardliners.
The army, a powerful presence in Aceh frequently criticized for human-rights
abuses, likewise remains distrustful of the rebels and those who would work
with them. Its generals bristle when Mr. Kuntoro says he'll happily rebuild
rebel areas and welcome them on his reconstruction team. "The army sends
intelligence guys [to spy on BRR's office], but I don't care," he says. "We
have nothing to hide."
The BRR's reconstruction efforts will go smoother if the peace holds. Many are
confident it will, despite false starts in the past. "We are really sure both
sides are committed," says Jaakko Okansen, a military adviser to the Aceh
Monitoring Mission, an unarmed group from the European Union and five Southeast
Asian nations that is overseeing the region's disarmament. "Not a single time
has either side broken its word."
Like the peace process, the reconstruction effort will last for years and is
certain to have its share of disappointments. But as the rebuilding contracts
begin to flow in earnest, those on the ground see a lot that is encouraging.
"We're satisfied with the work so far," says Zainul Arifin, a descendant of the
former king of Aceh. "At least we have a roadmap for where we are going."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sebagai putra daerah, saya menganggap ini sebagai hadiah lebaran yang bermakna.
Saya tak pernah kenal Kuntoro. Ia generasi dibawah saya. Dan kalau benar apa
yang dilaporkan ini, maka saya pun mensyukuri bahwa kita masih punya tokoh2
reformasi yang tegas. Terutama mereka yang bertanya pada rakyat.
LIST MODERATOR: rotaryd3400@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tjoet Rachman PDG
Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.
DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this communication is intended solely
for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and others
authorized to receive it. It may contain confidential, legally privileged
information or otherwise protected by law from disclosure and is intended
solely for the use of the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient you
are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or taking any
action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited
and may be unlawful. Unless otherwise specifically stated by the sender, any
documents or views presented are solely those of the sender and do not
constitute official documents or views of PT Apexindo Pratama Duta Tbk. If you
received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender or our email
administrator at postmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxx and delete it from your system. Thank
you.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page
http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/BRUplB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
***************************************************************************
Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg
Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny. http://www.ppi-india.org
***************************************************************************
__________________________________________________________________________
Mohon Perhatian:
1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik)
2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari.
3. Reading only, http://dear.to/ppi
4. Satu email perhari: ppiindia-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
5. No-email/web only: ppiindia-nomail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
6. kembali menerima email: ppiindia-normal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ppiindia-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
** Forum Nasional Indonesia PPI India Mailing List **
** Untuk bergabung dg Milis Nasional kunjungi:
** Situs Milis: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ **
** Beasiswa dalam negeri dan luar negeri S1 S2 S3 dan post-doctoral
scholarship, kunjungi
http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com **
Other related posts:
- » [nasional_list] [ppiindia] Fw: After the Tsunami, An Aceh Surprise: Good Government Wall Street Jounal 2 November 05
