Administration defines merging agencies, offices

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Thu, 10/09/2008 10:36 AM | City

The city administration is drafting revisions of regional bylaws which spell out organizational structure, in efforts to pare down the number of city agencies, Deputy Governor Prijanto said Wednesday.

Deputy Governor Prijanto said the current 26 agencies would be trimmed to 20 and projected the changes would go into effect in 2009.

The proposed streamlining aims to improve efficiency, though city officials have not yet specified to what extent staff positions will be eliminated

"According to Home Ministry guidelines, we are allowed to have 21 agencies at most. So, we will merge agencies with similar or related functions," Prijanto said at City Hall.

For example, the Primary Education and the Secondary and Higher Education agencies will be merged to form a sole Education Agency.

Other planned mergers include joining the Tourism and the Culture and Museum agencies to form the Culture and Tourism Agency. The Agriculture and Forestry and the Fisheries and Maritime agencies will become the Food Resilience and Maritime Agency.

"We are cooperating with experts from the Indonesian Society for Governance Studies (MIPI) in the drafting process," he said.

The administration will also merge some administrative offices with certain agencies.

The city's office for building management, for instance, will become part of the Housing Agency, to be renamed the Housing and Regional Building Agency.

The new Green Area and Cemetery Agency will come out of the merger between the Parks and the Public Cemetery agencies. The Spatial Planning Agency and the Land and Mapping Office will merge to form the Spatial Planning and Utilization Agency.

"We will also unite the office for Information and Technology with the Communications and Informatics Agency for the sake of efficiency," Prijanto said, adding that the streamlining would lead to changes in the responsibilities these institutions would hold.

"The new Spatial Planning and Utilization Agency, for example, will take over the task of arranging building permits, which used to fall under the Property Management and Control Agency. Property Management will continue to monitor the process," he said.

He said the administration was also planning to trim five support offices into four: Development, Regional Apparatus, Social Welfare and Economy and Administration. The current Finance office will be folded into Economy and Administration.

"We will pass our proposed revisions to the city council as soon as Governor Fauzi Bowo approves the new organizational structure," said Prijanto.

"We hope the new framework will be ready by next year so we can organize the 2009 budget based on it," he said.

Prijanto, however, did not offer details on the status of employees working in the soon-to-be-merged agencies.

"Don't assume the mergers will lead to terminations because many employees will be retiring in 2009," he said.

Comments (0) | Post comment

A | A | A |