Ministry to evaluate regional autonomy

Ten years since Indonesia created its first autonomous region, the Home Ministry has decided to evaluate the implementation of the regional autonomy law.

Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi said Wednesday the assessment aimed to analyze the performances of 205 autonomous regions and their 127 mother regions.

“We will focus on evaluating the regions’ prosperity, the quality of their administrations and public services and their competitiveness,” he said.

The project aims to produce data that would be used to map and categorize the performances of regional administrations. Gamawan said the ministry would then develop programs and strategies to improve the performance of administrations in these regions.

The assessment will also pave the way for the issuance of policies to regulate the establishment, abolishment and merging of autonomous regions, he said.

“The [Home Ministry] will also identify strategic issues in formulating several policies that will aim to improve the performances of autonomous and mother regions,” he said.

Since the deliberation of the 1999 Law on Regional Autonomy, the country has granted autonomy to 205 regions, comprising seven provinces, 164 regencies and 34 cities.

Gamawan said the number of autonomous regions had mushroomed and that the government felt it was important to slow this trend by imposing a moratorium on the establishment of new autonomous regions.

The ministry plans to make improvements to regulations covering the requirements and procedures involved in the establishment of such regions.