Rabu, 22 Desember 2010

Argumentasi Kebijakan

Analisis kebijakan tidak berhenti pada penggunaan berbagai metode pengkajian untuk menghasilkan dan mentransformasikan informasi. Meskipun produksi dan transformasi informasi merupakan suatu hal yang esensial dalam analisis kebijakan, yang tidak kalah pentingnya adalah penciptaan dan penilaian secara kritis klaim pengetahuan yang didasarkan atas informasi tersebut. Klaim pengetahuan yang dikembangkan sebagai kesimpulan dari argumen-argumen kebijakan, mencerminkan alasan-alasan mengapa berbagai macam pelaku kebijakan tidak sepakat terhadap suatu alternatif kebijakan.

Argumen-argumen kebijakan, yang merupakan sarana untuk melakukan perdebatan mengenai isu-isu kebijakan publik, mempunyai enam elemen/unsur, yaitu:

  1. Informasi yang relevan dengan kebijakan (I)

    Dihasilkan melalui penerapan berbagai metode merupakan bukti dari kerja analisis. Informasi tentang masalah-masalah kebijakan, masa depan kebijakan, aksi-aksi kebijakan, hasil kebijakan, dan kinerja kebijakan yang disajikan dalam berbagai bentuk. Informasi yang relevan dengan kebijakan merupakan titik tolak dari suatu argumen kebijakan.

  1. Klaim Kebijakan (C)

    Merupakan kesimpulan dari suatu argumen kebijakan. Klaim kebijakan merupakan konsekuensi logis dari informasi yang relevan bagi kebijakan. Jika klaim kebijakan mengikuti penyajian informasi klaim tersebu berbunyi “maka”.

  1. Pembenaran/Warrant (W)

    Merupakan suatu asumsi di dalam argumen kebijakan yang memungkinkan analis untuk berpindah dari informasi yang relevan dengan kebijakan ke klaim kebijakan. Pembenaran dapat mengandung berbagai macam asumsi otoritatif, intuitif, analisentris, kausal, pragmatis, dan kritik nilai. Peranan dari pembenaran adalah untuk membawa informasi yang relevan dengan kebijakan kepada klaim kebijakan tentang terjadinya ketidak-sepakatan atau konflik, dengan demikian memberi suatu alasan untuk menerima klaim.

  1. Dukungan/Backing (B)

    Dukungan (B) bagi pembenaran (W) terdiri dari asumsi-asumsi tambahan atau argumen-argumen yang dapat digunakan untuk mendukung pembenaran yang tidak diterima pada nilai yang tampak. Dukungan terhadap pembenaran dapat mengambil berbagai macam bentuk, yaitu hukum-hukum ilmiah, pertimbangan para pemegang otoritas keahlian, atau prinsip-prinsip moral dan etis. Dukungan terhadap pembenaran memungkinkan analisis bergerak ke belakang dan menyatakan asumsi-asumsi yang menyertainya.

  1. Bantahan/Rebuttal (R)

    Merupakan kesimpulan yang kedua, asumsi, atau argumen yang menyatakan kondisi di mana klaim asli tidak diterima, atau klaim asli hanya dapat diterima pada derajat penerimaan tertentu. Secara keseluruhan klaim kebijakan dan bantahan membentuk substansi isu-isu kebijakan, yaitu ketidak-sepakatan di antara segmen-segmen yang berbeda dalam masyarakat terhadap serangkaian alternatif tindakan pemerintah. Pertimbangan terhadap bantahan-bantahan membantu analis mengantisipasi tujuan-tujuan dan menyediakan perangkat sistematis untuk mengkritik salah satu klaim, asumsi dan argumennya.

  1. Kesimpulan/Qualifier (Q)

    Kesimpulan (Q) mengekspresikan derajat dimana analis yakin terhadap suatu klaim kebijakan. Dalam analisis kebijakan, pemberi sifat sering diekspresikan dalam bahasa probabilitas (seperti “Barangkali”, “Sangat mungkin”, “pada tingkat kepercayaan 0,01”). Ketika analis secara penuh yakin terhadap suatu klaim atau ketika kesimpulan sepenuhnya deterministik dan tidak mengandung kesalahan sama sekali, suatu kesimpulan tidak diperlukan.

Struktur argumen kebijakan mengilustrasikan bagaimana para analis dapat menggunakan informasi untuk merekomendasikan pemecahan bagi masalah-masalah kebijakan. Hubungan di antara ke-enam elemen argumen kebijakan juga mendemonstrasikan di dalam cara-cara yang berbeda, tergantung pada kerangka referensi, ideologi, atau pandangan dari kelompok-kelompok yang berbeda. Argumen kebijakan memungkinkan kita terus melangkah melampaui perolehan informasi dan mentransformasikan informasi itu ke dalam kepercayaan tentang kebenaran yang dapat diterima (pengetahuan). Dengan demikian, analis dapat menggunakan kombinasi berbagai metode sehingga menjadi terbuka terhadap tantangan, dapat melakukan kritik diri, dan mampu mengarah kepada penyelesaian masalah-masalah, bukannya melakukan pembenaran terhadap alternatif-alternatif kebijakan yang disukai.

Sumber:

William N. Dunn, Pengantar Analisis Kebijakan Publik, terjemahan.

Selasa, 21 Desember 2010

The Making of the Big Bang and its Aftermath A Political Economy Perspective (Part 3 of 3)

Bert Hofman and Kai Kaiser World Bank1

Paper Presented at the Conference: CAN DECENTRALIZATION HELP REBUILD INDONESIA?

A Conference Sponsored by the International Studies Program, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University

May 1-3 2002

Atlanta, Georgia

    3. Issues in the Intergovernmental Fiscal System

Indonesia’s new intergovernmental fiscal system devolves on aggregate enough resources to cover the devolved expenditure responsibilities. But the intergovernmental fiscal system is as of yet far from ideal. The distribution of resources and tasks has caused budgetary problems in some of the regions, especially at the provincial level. The regions’ high dependence on central transfers could undermine local accountability. Inadequate provisions for local taxes risks inappropriate taxation and unhealthy tax exporting. And finally, the system has few means for central government to finance national priorities at the local level.

Law 25 of 1999 meant fundamental reforms of Indonesia’s intergovernmental fiscal relations. The reforms strongly increased the regional government’s share of government resources, moved the transfer system from one dominated by earmarked grants to one largely relying on general grants supplemented by revenue sharing, and—with the reforms introduced by law 34/2000—gave broad taxing authorities to local government.

Before the 2001 decentralization, most resources were transferred from central to regional governments through earmarked grants. The largest of these was the SDO (Subsidi Daerah Autonom or subsidy for autonomous region) grant which covered all civil service salaries and recurrent expenditures for the regions. In addition, INPRES (Instruksi President) grants aimed to finance development spending in the regions. The INPRES grants started as a block grant for development spending in the 1980s, but gradually evolved into an array of specific grants for purposes ranging from re-greening18

In the new system, central regional transfers remain the dominant means of financing, but the earmarking is gone. The bulk of regional government spending is financed by transfers from the center (see Table 1:DAU Dominates). Well over 90 percent of regional revenues come from the Balancing Fund (dana perimbangan) which includes a general grant (the Dana Alokasi Umum or DAU), shared taxes, natural resource revenues (SDA, sumber daya alam), and a special allocation grant channel (DAK, dana alokasi khusus) Local governments have limited own revenues (PAD, pendapatan asli daerah), which constitutes less than 7 percent of total revenues. Starting 2002, the center is also making additional special autonomy transfer arrangements with two provinces.

Dana Alokasi Umum. The Dana Alokasi Umum (DAU) or general grant is the mainstay of the new intergovernmental fiscal system. The DAU adds up to some 65 percent of regional revenues, and to a little over 70 percent of the Balancing Fund. The DAU is by law a minimum of 25 percent of central government revenues after tax sharing.19 For 2001 and 2002 this minimum allocation has been maintained by Government and Parliament. However, although the law and the regulations suggest that the 25 percent is the share of actual revenues after revenue sharing, for FY2001 the budgeted amount was disbursed. In all, this cost the region some Rp. 9 Trillion in revenues, or 15 percent of the total DAU for that year.20

Because the “hold harmless” element was interpreted to be a minimum DAU allocation rather than a guaranteed amount, this element took almost 80 percent of the total DAU. In 2002, the minimum DAU was reduced to 50 percent of the total amount, but rather than relating it to past SDO and INPRES, is became a minimum amount per region, plus an amount related to the actual wage bill of 2001. But “hold harmless” obtained a new meaning: Parliament objected against the proposed distribution of the DAU, because the richer regions stood to lose compared to the 2001 distribution.21

The formula part of the allocation relies on the notion of expenditure needs and own fiscal capacity. The share in the DAU pool for a region depends on the difference between its fiscal needs and its fiscal capacity. For 2001 there concepts were interpreted different from 2002, in part due to practical reasons, in part due to more analysis done for 2002. In 2001, at the time the formula had to be presented to the Regional Autonomy Advisory Council, the data on shared revenues were not yet available, and it was decided to ignore them. For 2002 they were included, but natural resource revenue shares only for 75 percent. As indicators for expenditure need the formula includes (i) population; (ii) poverty rate; (iii) land area; and(iv) the construction price index as an indicator of “geographical circumstances.” The formula must include these variables, as they arementioned in the elucidation of Law 25/99. In the 2001 formula each of the variables was included with equal weight, whereas in the 2002 formula, population and area both received higher weights than the others.

Contingency. The DAU allocation was supplemented by a “contingency fund” to absorb any mismatches between devolved expenditure responsibilities and revenues. Of a budgeted amount of Rp. 6T. in 2001, some Rp. 3 T was disbursed. The first tranche of Rp. 1.1 T. related to genuine mismatches caused by decentralization. A process of application, review and allocation set out in a Presidential decree was followed for this tranche. The second tranche, however, became necessary because of the centrally mandated salary increase which pushed up the regional wage bill by some 15-30 percent.

Shared revenues. The 2001 decentralization greatly increased the importance of shared revenues. The most important factor was the inclusion of oil and gas revenues and personal income tax in the taxes to be shared. The former were included to accommodate long-standing dissatisfaction of natural resource rich regions which felt that “Jakarta” took their resources, and they did not get anything in return. True or not, with the implementation of Law 25/1999, they now get a significant share of those revenues (see Table 2: Revenue shares). In addition, the personal income tax was included for sharing through Law 17 of 2000.22 For each of these shared taxes, the province gets a minor part, whereas the bulk of revenues goes to the local governments.

The sharing formulae for most of the shared revenues contain an additional element of equalization. For oil and gas, mining, and forestry, the local governments of regions neighboring the producing region receive a share as well. For fisheries, property tax and land transfer tax, a small percentage of the revenues is shared by all local governments in Indonesia. Whereas the underlying motivation may well be one of equalization, with the initiation of a formula-based DAU, these complex sharing mechanisms may well be redundant—whatever a region gets from those shared taxes is counted as own fiscal capacity, and reduces the allocation of the DAU.

Own Revenues. Law 34/2000 greatly expands the scope for local government revenues. The law amended law 18 of 1997, which intended to stop the then-prevailing local government practice of issuing a plethora of local government taxes, many with little revenue potential, and high costs to the taxpayer and the economy. Law 18/1999 therefore restricted regional taxes to a closed list, and made any additional taxes conditional upon approval of the Ministry of Finance.

Law 34 reverses the burden of proof. The law still gives a list of regional taxes, but regional governments can add taxes through regional regulations approved by the regional government council, as long as it abides by the principles mentioned in the law. These principles are sound (Box), but supervising them has turned out to be problematic—not least because the law has tight deadlines for central government to meet if it wants to cancel a local tax. An added complication is the way supervision is structured: Law 22/1999 gives the Minister of Home Affairs the authority to cancel regional regulations, including those on regional taxes. Up until now, the Minister has been hesitant to invoke these powers, not least because regional governments have the right to appeal his decision to the Supreme Court. As a result, there has been little to check regional government’s creativity in taxation, and although the damage still remains limited, 84 out of the more than 1,000 regulations on local taxes have been found to be in conflict with the law. Among them are taxes on the “import” of goats into kabupaten Bogor, and an advertisement tax on Coca-Cola bottles in Lampung province. Meanwhile, the Minister of Home Affairs has as of now formally cancelled only one regional tax.

Do the Regions Get Enough?

A key question for the new intergovernmental fiscal system is whether the regions on aggregate receive enough resources. This question can be considered in three ways: (i) do the regions receive enough resources to cover the expenditures needed for the tasks they are expected to perform? (ii) do the regions receive an amount compatible with what government as a whole can afford? and (iii) do the regions receive enough to cover the spending obligations they inherited from the central government in the course of decentralization.

Method (i), sometimes labeled the costed minimum standards approach, has practical and theoretical issues. For starters, as was argued previously, Law 22/1999 does not clearly define the functions of the regional governments, as the functions are defined negatively: local government does everything that the center and the provinces does not do. And for the obligatory functions of local government, which are defined in the law, it does not clearly define what part of the function local government performs, not what minimum standards of services should be delivered. Even if these issues could be overcome, the in formation to cost out the functions is lacking at present. Moreover, determining what the functions cost at present may not be very telling for what the functions should cost if efficiently delivered. But apart from all these practical objections, there is a more fundamental objection against this method: unless carefully managed, minimum standards are but a wish list of spending developed independently of what government as a whole can afford.

Method (ii) the affordability approach faces several issues as well. The method requires the Indonesian government to make choices for the nation as a whole as to what it wants to spend its scarce resources on. If the priorities so determined are tasks of regional government, then more resources would need to be devolved—be it through grants, revenue sharing, or devolution of more tax bases to regional governments.23 Although the method is to be preferred over the costed minimum standard, there are numerous practical impediments, not least the lack of information in the current budget and accounting system which does not allow a link between policy goals and spending.

Central government could devolve more resources if it wanted to do so. Currently, a significant part of its spending is devoted to tasks that could be considered local government tasks. Taking the 2002 budget as a guide, the development budget still contains as much as 10-20 trillion or \[1 percent] of GDP in spending which could be further devolved to the regions, together with a corresponding increase in revenues. Note that implementation of these projects is already largely done at the sub-national level. However, since the financing is done from the central budget, there is no local scrutiny over the spending. On the recurrent budget, the wage bill probably offers further scope for savings, as not all civil servants that ought to have been decentralized actually were. Moreover, the Government has already decided to phase out the fuel subsidies over time, and this will further free up resources that could be made available to the regions. And finally, the government is determined to increase the tax ratio to GDP over time. One quarter of that increase will already be automatically transferred to the regions through the DAU, but more could be made available to the regions.

Whether increased resources should be made available remains to be seen. First, several areas of central government’s own responsibility that have been chronically underfunded, most notably Operations and Maintenance. Second, the central government is aiming for a zero budget deficit by fiscal year 04, and achieving this goal is likely to absorb much of the savings and additional revenues mobilize. And third, local governments may not be ready to absorb additional spending at this time, as they have just almost doubled their levels of spending, and their local planning, budgeting and financial management systems may already be stretched, and accountability at the local level is still weak.

(iii) Do the devolved resources cover the devolved responsibilities? On aggregate, more than enough revenues seem to have been devolved to match the transferred revenue responsibilities. This holds even if we take account of the July 2001 wage increase, and correcting the region’s own development spending for inflation. In total, the regions received “surplus” revenues of some Rp.21 Tr. in 2001, or 1.5 percentage point of GDP (Figure 3.__: More than enough).24

One could, therefore, argue that decentralization “cost” the center this very same amount: if Government could have perfectly targeted the devolved resources, it could have transferred Rp. 21 Trillion less than it actually did. Lewis (2001, p.330) estimates an even higher surplus of Rp.27.5, but this was before the wage increase and the subsequent disbursement of the contingency fund. Lewis also estimates separately the surpluses of the provincial level and the local level. His judgment is that whereas at the provincial level the extra revenues more or less just cover the extra expenditures, local governments received most of the surplus. This findings jives also with the disbursements from the contingency fund, of which a disproportional amount was disbursed to the provinces.

Further evidence for the finding that more than enough resources were transferred can be found in development spending. Budgeted regional development spending made a significant jump in 2001, from an (annualized) Rp. 14 Tr. in FY2000 to a planned Rp. 26 Tr. in FY2001 (Table 3: Consolidated Development Spending).

The regions may have been forced to cut back slightly on these plans after the July wage increase, but there is every reason to believe that development spending in the regions rose significantly. This is good news for government development spending as a whole: because of the increase in regional development spending, the drop of central development spending as a percent of GDP did not lead to a n overall decline: for both 2000 and 2001, this was budgeted to be about 5.1 percent of GDP.

Thus, the regions as a whole do not seem strapped for funds. The increase in development spending in the regions also suggests that there is more than sufficient funds to cover the (recurrent cost of) functions transferred. Therefore, the often-heard argument that the regions spend mostly on “bureaucrats” and have too few resources for “services to the people,” therefore seems to be a red herring. In fact, on aggregate, wages make up little over 50 percent of regional spending (Table 4: Summary Regional Expenditures). Moreover, it is a misconception that only development spending can be considered as service delivery: as the civil service numbers in chapter 2 suggest, some 70 percent of the wage bill is paid to teachers and health workers, civil servants that provide direct services to the people.

In conclusion, on aggregate more than sufficient revenues were devolved to cover the additional expenditure responsibilities of the regions. Little can be said about whether this was enough to cover expenditure levels sufficiently large to cover some minimum standard of services in the regions.

How equal is the new intergovernmental fiscal system?

Sufficient resources for the regions on aggregate disguise large variations among the regions in fiscal capacity. Even after redistribution through the DAU, in FY2001 the richest local government had more than fifty times as much revenues per capita as the poorest one (Table A.2). The poorest region has only 20 percent of the per capita revenues as the average. And the variation among the regions as measured by the Gini coefficient for the per capita revenues for the regions is some 0.39.

Some of this variation can be explained by the small size of the units of local government in Indonesia.25

But even if one aggregates revenues at the provincial level, the variation in revenue capacity remains large: the richest province has about ten times as much revenues per capita as the poorest one, and the poorest one has only some 40 percent of the revenue capacity of the average one. For comparison, in the US, the poorest state as about 65 percent of the revenues of the average state, and in Germany, any state falling below 95 percent of average gets subsidized. In Russia, the variation in the \[56] oblasts is more in line with that of Indonesia: the richest of the 89 regions has revenues per capita some 40 times higher than the poorest, which is still considerably less than that among Indonesian local governments, although larger than among the provinces.26 In Brazil, the richest state has 2.3 times the revenues per capita of the poorest state.27 In China, expenditures per capita in the richest province was some 17 times that of the poorest one, but excluding the city provinces of Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin, the disparity fell to 5.5 to 1.28

Why are inequalities in fiscal capacity so high among Indonesia’s regions? After all, the Law on Fiscal Balance promises a system that would equalize fiscal capacity among the regions taking into account the regions’ own fiscal capacity and fiscal needs. Two causes of inequality stand out: (i) The large variation in own fiscal capacity among Indonesia’s regions, and (ii) the imperfections in the equalization mechanism of the DAU.

Disparities in own fiscal capacity.

Own fiscal capacity among the regions varies widely. Much of the variation is due to revenues from natural resource sharing. The few regions that do receive substantial amount, but not all. The distribution of the personal income tax share is highly unequal as well, with some regions receiving no revenues at all from this source. Relative to these two sources of revenues, variation in own taxes (PAD) per capita is relatively small.

Equalizing properties of the DAU29

The DAU allocations reduce disparities in fiscal capacity among the regions. Whether it does so by enough is hard to tell, in part because the concept of equalization itself is left vague in the law, the regulations, and even in the political debate surrounding the DAU allocation. Law 25/1999 requires the DAU to be allocated such that it reduces the disparity between expenditure needs and “economic potential.” The allocation is to be done by formula taking objective factors of needs into account and own fiscal capacity. The elucidation of the law mentions explicitly the factors population, area, poverty, and geographical condition—which was later interpreted as cost differences. There are several reasons for this, but the key one was that the allocation of the DAU was restricted by the need to give regions enough finance to pay for the devolved government apparatus, and the resulting “hold harmless” clause was misinterpreted.

The hold harmless clause. In the run-up to 2001, the authorities had to solve the intractable issue of matching the new expenditure assignments with the new intergovernmental fiscal system. Expenditures “landed” in those regions where the government apparatus that was to be decentralized was located. To avoid that the bulk of the money, the DAU, would land somewhere else, and thereby risking that civil servants went unpaid and services break down, it was decided that the DAU allocation should hold regions harmless compared to what they received before in SDO and INPRES and what they had to spend extra on the devolved government apparatus. This became known as the “base amount,” equal to 130 percent of SDO and 110 percent of INPRES of (annualized) FY2000 amount. A true hold harmless clause would have ensured that regions would not fall below that amount. Instead, it became a minimum—absorbing some 80 percent of the total DAU.

The DAU allocation for 2001 therefore became strongly correlated with past distribution of grants. This favored the resource rich regions, because the old INPRES system was implicitly compensating these regions for the revenues generated by them. On top of the base amount, each region received an amount based on a formula that included fiscal needs and own fiscal capacity. But because information on revenue sharing was not yet known at the time of formulating the DAU, natural resource revenue shares were not counted as own fiscal capacity.

The “hold harmless” took on a different meaning in 2002. MOF had proposed a more equalizing DAU allocation for 2002—among others by now taking natural resource revenues into account, and the Regional Autonomy Advisory Board had approved the proposal. But the regions that stood to lose lobbied hard with Parliament, and even though according to Law 25/99 Parliament had no formal say in the distribution of the DAU (as opposed to the aggregate amount), it insisted that each region would get at least as much as DAU as in 2001.

The bottom line of all this is that the DAU allocations are less equalizing than one would expect based on the Law. Regression analysis in Hofman, Kajatmiko, Kaiser (partially reproduced in Annex 3) shows that the DAU is positively correlated with own fiscal capacity, and shows a strong relationship with the wage bill. Nevertheless, the DAU still equalizes in the sense that variation in revenue per capita as measured by Gini coefficient or coefficient of variation is reduced by the DAU (Table 5). The reason for this is that regions with high own fiscal capacity do receive less DAU as a proportion of that own fiscal capacity even though in absolute amounts they may receive more that regions with low own fiscal capacity.

Fiscal Dependency

Historically Indonesia has had one of the most centralized tax systems in the world (Ma, Jun 1997). The recent fiscal decentralization actually increased regional fiscal dependence, as measures by the share of own revenues (PAD) in total revenues.International evidence suggests that this high degree of dependence is inversely associated with governance outcomes (de Melo, Luiz and Matias Barenstrein 2001), and fiscal dependence should therefore be a concern for Indonesia.

Law 34/200 on regional taxes should have addressed the issue of fiscal dependency. However, the approach taken in that law led to another set of problems. Law 34/2000 allows for regions to issue their own tax regulations, as long as they abide by certain (sound) principles. This is far more liberal than Law 18/1997 which only allowed a limited number of taxes specified in the law, with high hurdles on additional taxes. At the same time, Law 34/2000 did not devolve a tax most suited for regional governments: the land and real estate tax.30 Arguably the approach of Law 18/1997 may be better, even though it did perhaps not encompass an appropriate tax base for the regions “Nuisance” or “predatory” taxation have received some attention during the first year of decentralization. Many of those taxes are technically illegal, and improved central supervision is clearly one important remedy to this problem,. But a more fundamental solution to the “revenue hunger” of the regions will probably include enhanced local tax bases and marginal levels of revenue discretion. The trouble with this solution is that those taxes that may be most lucrative from a revenue basis, are also be less desirable from an equalization of fiscal capacity perspective (e.g., natural-resources or property/service based taxes which will disproportionately benefit urban areas).31

Directions for Reforms

Indonesia’s intergovernmental fiscal system can be much improved. The broad orientation of reforms is to have the relatively rich regions “fend for themselves” with own tax base, shared taxes and commercial borrowing. The poorer regions are to get support through DAU, DAK, and access to well-managed central lending and on-lending facilities to enable them to provide similar quality services at similar local tax rates throughout Indonesia.

Improving the intergovernmental fiscal system in this direction requires, among others:

  • Moving to a more equalizing DAU by phasing out the transitional elements in the allocation.
  • Restricting local taxes to a closed list over which the regions have tax rate autonomy—possibly within centrally set limits.
  • This list of taxes should include the property taxes, and could include a local surcharge in the personal income tax and payroll taxes and selective business taxes. Expanding motor vehicle use or fuel taxation is a further option.
  • Deciding on a transparent and consistent treatment of natural resource revenues in revenue sharing and in the equalization formula.
  • Introducing a selective system of specific grants—combined with an (on) lending window—to promote the financing of national priorities at local level. A larger DAK could be financed from a gradual reduction in the center’s own development spending on regional functions.

References

1 The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. This paper draws on the forthcoming World Bank Regional Public Expenditure Review for Indonesia, and on Hofman, Kaiser and Kajatmiko (2001). The authors wish to express thanks to Jorge Martinez, Roy Bahl, Richard Bird, Roy Kelly, Dana Weist, Blane Lewis, Bernd May, and Machfud Sidik for the many helpful discussions on the topic of the paper. We thank Fitria Fitriani for excellent research assistance.

18 See Annex Table XXX for detail, and Silver, Christopher, Iwan J. Azis, and Larry Schroeder. 2001. Intergovernmental Transfers and Decentralization in Indonesia. Bulletin for Indonesian Economic Studies 37 (3):345-62

19 Law 25 is not specific on whether the 25 percent is before or after revenue sharing. PP104 has taken this interpretation, which has apparently been accepted by Parliament and the regions.

20 Revenues in the approved budget for 2001 were Rp.263T and revenue sharing Rp. 20 T, which yields a DAU of Rp. 60T. Actual revenues as per preliminary outcome data suggests revenues of Rp. 299T. Assuming the same amount of revenue sharing, this would result in a DAU of Rp. 69T

21 This Parliamentary involvement in the distribution seems against Law 25/1999 which specifies that the Regional Autonomy Advisory Council proposes the distribution of the DAU to the President, who approves it by Presidential decree.

22 The sharing of the personal income tax on a derivation basis was decided at the last moment, and inspired by a conversation the Minister ff Finance had on a trip to disseminate the decentralization laws. Art .31C of Law 17/2000 describes the sharing. However, the article is unclear whether the sharing of the personal income tax is based on the residence principle or the place of work.

23 South Africa is operating such a system. The constitution prescribes functions for the provinces and municipalities, and orders the government to give each level of government its “equitable share” of the national revenues. The equitable share is determined in the context of budget preparation, which in the case of South Africa is ased on a medium term expenditure framework. If, say, more priority is put on health case, the equitable share of the province—which is responsible for it, will; get a larger share.

24 One caveat here is the assumption that all development projects implemented by the Kanvils and Kandeps continue to be financed from the central budget. This seems to have been the case but the center is now trying to find ways do devolve this financing responsibility.

25 This point was made by Richard Bird in a comment at the Bali conference on Decentralization in East Asia, January 10-11 2002.

26 Martinez-Vazquaesz, Jorge and Jameson Boex (1998): Fiscal Decentralization in the Russian Federation: Main Trends and Issues. Report prepared for the World Bank/EDI, December.

27 Issues in Brazilian Federalism, Draft World Bank Report, May 8, 2001

28 World Bank, 2001 China: Provincial Expenditures Review, Report No. 22591-CHA), November, Washington DC.

29 For more detail on this issue see Lewis (2001) and Hofman, Kajatmiko, and Kaiser (2002)

30 The thinking in the ministry of Finance on this has already shifted in the direction of devolvingthis tax.

31 Zhuravskaya (2000) argues that the intergovernmental fiscal system prevailing in the Russian federation in the ninetees provided no incentives to increase the local tax base or provide public goods. Shared revenue allocations effectively penalized regions that raised their own revenues. When regions effectively have no opportunity to increase local revenues, they will also have little incentives to increase the local tax base and will over-regulate local business.

Minggu, 19 Desember 2010

Pengertian dan Perkembangan Analisis Kebijakan

Analisis kebijakan dapat dimengerti sebagai proses yang menghasilkan pengetahuan tentang dan dalam proses kebijakan. Pengetahuan tentang proses kebijakan mengacu pada “studi sistematis dan empiris tentang bagaimana kebijakan dibuat dan memberikan efek”, sementara pengetahuan dalam proses kebijakan mengacu pada pemahaman bahwa “realisme keputusan untuk sebagian bergantung pada akses terhadap stok pengetahuan yang ada”. Dalam definisi yang luas ini, analisis kebijakan mencakup berbagai bentuk pengkajian, dari penggunaan mistis atau tenaga gaib sampai ke ilmu-ilmu modern.

Secara historis, tujuan analisis kebijakan adalah menyediakan informasi bagi pembuat kebijakan untuk dijadikan bahan pertimbangan yang nalar guna menemukan pemecahan masalah kebijakan. Dengan demikian, analisis kebijakan memiliki dasar orientasi praktis yang dalam banyak hal menjadikannya sama dengan ilmu sosial terapan.

Metodologi, metode dan teknik analisis kebijakan telah berubah dengan nyata sepanjang sejarah. Tetapi analisis kebijakan secara eksplisit hanya menjadi empiris dan kuantitatif pada periode setelah Revolusi Industri. Ketika analisis kebijakan abad dua puluh mengikuti tradisi yang telah ditetapkan pada abad sebelumnya, lima puluh tahun yang lalu telah terlihat peningkatan profesionalisme analisis kebijakan dan pelembagaannya di pemerintahan. Pada periode setelah Perang Dunia II, pendekatan analysentrik mulai mendominasi analisis kebijakan.

Evolusi analisis kebijakan umumnya telah mengikuti perubahan di dalam masyarakat. Salah satu perubahan besar di dalam masyarakat adalah tumbuhnya wilayah perkotaan di Mesopotamia dan kemudian di India, China dan Yunani. Pada periode abad pertengahan, peradaban perkotaan menjadi lebih kompleks dengan adanya diferensiasi dan spesialisasi peran analisis kebijakan terutama masalah keuangan, perang dan hukum.

Transformasi utama di dalam produksi pengetahuan kebijakan terjadi sebagai akibat Revolusi Industri dan Jaman Pencerahan, keduanya diikuti pertumbuhan stabilitas politik di antara kekacauan sosial. Pada abad dua puluh, analisis kebijakan berkembang. Pertama untuk menanggapi kelesuan ekonomi dan perang, dan kemudian sebagai reaksi terhadap pemerintah yang tumbuh secara dramatis. Sesudah Perang Dunia II, lahir masyarakat pasca-industri yang memiliki klas teknis-profesional yang terdidik dan telah mencapai posisi menonjol yang tidak terduga seperti periode sebelumnya.

Terdapat sedikitnya dua cara utama untuk menjelaskan evolusi sejarah analisis kebijakan dari dulu hingga saat ini. Menurut salah satu pendekatan (bimbingan teknokratis), pengetahuan kebijakan adalah sumber daya langka yang kepemilikannya dapat meningkatkan kekuatan dan pengaruh analisis kebijakan yang profesional. Pendekatan yang lain (konseling teknokratis) sebaliknya menyatakan bahwa peran utama analis kebijakan adalah untuk mengesahkan keputusan kebijakan yang dibuat oleh pemegang kekuasaan.

Masing-masing pendekatan membantu di dalam beberapa hal untuk menjelaskan perubahan sejarah, tetapi keduanya cenderung untuk melebih-lebihkan kekuasaan dan pengaruh analisis kebijakan dengan alasan yang berbeda. Pendekatan bimbingan teknokratis terlalu berlebihan menilai pengaruh analisis di dalam membentuk pilihan kebijakan yang penting, sebaliknya pendekatan konseling teknokratis salah dalam menilai kepentingan simbolis dari analisis di dalam mengesahkan keputusan kebijakan yang dibuat pada dasar-dasar politik.

Apapun keputusan akhir dari kontroversi tersebut, adalah jelas bahwa lingkungan masyarakat pada saat ini dan masalahnya telah berubah secara dramatis. Usaha-usaha untuk mengembangkan prosedur yang baru dan lebih baik untuk menghasilkan informasi yang akan memberi sumbangan kepada resolusi permasalahan publik bukanlah semata-mata tugas intelektual ataupun tugas ilmiah, tetapi pada dasarnya bersifat politis. Analisis kebijakan melekat di dalam proses politik yang merefleksikan konflik nilai dari beberapa kelompok masyarakat yang memperjuangkan visi mereka sendiri tentang pengembangan sosial.

Sumber:

William N. Dunn, Pengantar Analisis Kebijakan Publik, terjemahan.

Sabtu, 18 Desember 2010

The Making of the Big Bang and its Aftermath A Political Economy Perspective (Part 2 of 3)

Bert Hofman and Kai Kaiser World Bank1

Paper Presented at the Conference: CAN DECENTRALIZATION HELP REBUILD INDONESIA?

A Conference Sponsored by the International Studies Program, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University

May 1-3 2002

Atlanta, Georgia

    2. Issues in Administrative Decentralization

Law 22 of 1999 devolves most functions of government to Indonesia’s regions—currently 30 provinces and over 348 districts and cities. The key exceptions (Art. 7) are national defense, international relations, justice, police, monetary, development planning, religion, and finance. The districts must perform important functions (Art.11), including health, education, environmental and infrastructure services. The province as anautonomous region has only a minor role, mainly in coordination, and backstopping districts and cities that cannot yet perform their functions—which may be an opening for an expanded provincial role. Law 22 explicitly states that there is no hierarchical relationship between the province as an autonomous region and the district. The province will also continue to perform deconcentrated central tasks, and is the central government representative in the regions. Implementing regulations (PP25/2000) further specify the remaining roles of the central and provincial governments, including setting standards for service delivery.

The regional councils directly elect the head of region, although this election needs confirmation by the President (Art. 40). The DPRD can dismiss a head of region as well, but unlike the situation at the national level, DPRD and head of regions are supposed to be partners of the regional government (Art.16) after the collegial model as it exists for instance in the Netherlands. The central government can annul regional bylaws and regulations that conflict with national laws and regulations (Art. 114), but the regions can appeal to the Supreme Court against the center’s decision—at least according to the law. Urban areas (Art. 92) are obliged to include community and private parties into development planning. No such obligation exists for rural areas. The intergovernmental regional autonomy advisory board with representatives from the center and the regions is to advise the President on issues concerning decentralization, and approves requests for new regions that can be originated from the government of existing regions.

Whose function is it anyway?

More than one year into decentralization, much unclarity remains on what exactly has been decentralized. Law 22 does not define local government functions directly, but only by specifying what the center (Art.7) and the province (Art 9) do. Article 11 specifies local government obligatory functions, but not to a level of operational detail. PP 25/2000 is not much help here, as it focuses on the remaining functions of central and regional governments. This legal framework of “general competency” rather than ultra vires definition of function as embedded in Law 5/1974 is unusual for local governments. It is also more radical than the subsidiarity principle—which was apparently the inspiration of the drafting team.9 Subsidiarity as a principle would not call for a limited list of central functions in the law, but for a process by which decentralization or centralization is determined, while specifying the principles that guide the process.

Omission of a general clause in the law to state that local government is bound by national law (omitted because the drafting team felt it was obvious10) further obscured the exact extent and nature of decentralization. This confusion was further increased by TAP MPR III which determined the hierarchy of laws, but omitted the ministerial decree as a legal instrument.11 Unfortunately, much of the detail on government functions is contained in such ministerial decrees. Moreover, even though regional regulations (PERDAs) are placed below central government legal instruments such as government regulations and Presidential Decrees, arguably organic regional regulations (i.e. based directly on a law that delegates regulatory responsibility to the regions) should take precedent over central regulations and decrees without a direct basis in the law. Worse, some central agencies, notably those for Land management and for Investment Approval have managed to get a Presidential Decree issued which exempts their authorities from decentralization as Law 22/99 calls for. And the adjustment of sectoral laws to align them with regional autonomy, as is called for in Law 22/99 Art. 133. Finally, the revised Art.18 of the constitution now calls for central functions to be regulated by Law, and the question is whether that law is Law 22/99, or whether a separate law is called for to specify these functions.

The bottom line of all this is that the distribution of functions, let alone the expected performance in exercising the functions, is still far from clear. Beyond causing utter confusion in the regions, this state of play not only undermines accountability of the regional government, but also hampers judgment on the vertical distribution of fiscal resources (see below). The confusion has not stopped central government to embark on an effort to have the regions “recognize” their functions in a positive list that is to be cleared by Presidential Decree.12 Without deeper understanding and agreement on the functions themselves, and the minimum standards for these functions, recognition of these functions seems distracting at best.

One way forward is currently under debate in Indonesia. First, international agreements and sectoral laws could be screened on commitments on service delivery standards already made. For instance, the Education Law guarantees 9 years of education for all. Second, central government and regions could embark on a process that would establish agreed standards of services in key areas, while taking into account the regions’ fiscal and human resource capacity. Standards thus agreed could then become the basis for monitoring and supervision, and possibly sanction. In all likelihood, these standards will vary widely per region, given Indonesia’s wide diversity in capacity. Meanwhile, a process to align sectoral laws with Law 22/99 could start, and the revisions could further specify the functions, and service standards, and which of those standards are to be considered as binding and sanctionable under PP20/2001 Art.16. Those sanctionable standards are likely to be few.

Levels of Government, Size of Local Governments, and Economy of Scale

Law 22/99 assigns most responsibility to the local government level. The provincial level only has coordinating functions, a role in issues that surpass district boundaries, or they can perform local government functions for those unable to perform the functions. The Province has a potential role in performing task on behalf of the districts, but little initiative has been undertaken to exploit this possibility under the law.13 The fact that the law explicitly states that there is no hierarchical relation between the province and the local governments did not help the province in gathering the local governments to plan for joint operation of functions and facilities. As a result, tasks with large externalities and significant economies of scale such as watershed management, sea management, communicable disease control, and others are likely to be left unperformed or underprovided.

Scale economies are also at risk because of the size of local governments. This is likely to get worse in the near future due to the apparently unstoppable tendency to create new regions—both provinces and local governments. The number of local governments since Law 22 passed has increased from less than 300 to 348 in 2002, with over 20 new ones expected for 2003, and the number of provinces increased from 26 to 32 (including the apparently defunct new provinces on Irian Jaya). The regions already show a wide variety in population size: provinces range from less than 800,000 inhabitants (Gorontalo) to over 35 million (East Java), and local governments from 24,000 to 4.1 million. Creation of new regions—which requires a law—is driven by several considerations, including historic and ethnic ones. But the wish to create a new region is likely to come from fiscal incentives as well. For one, if a district has a significant amount of natural resource revenues it will be better off to become a province, as it then no longer need to share the revenues with surrounding districts, or with the originating province. Urban areas are more likely to receive a share of the personal income tax than rural areas, and they have an incentive to split off from the kabupaten they are part off. And in the new DAU system, every region gets a lump-sum amount, thus creating incentives for each region to split up.

Creating more and more regions is not without consequence. Information on the wage bill of local government per capita of the population seems to point at sharply decreasing efficiency at the level of about 500,000 people (Figure). The districts with less than 100,000 people have about twice the wage bill per capita that those districts with 500,000 people have. Some of the difference could perhaps be explained by geography or a negative correlation between population size and density—thereby necessitating a larger civil service to supply the same amount of services. But prima facie the suggested scale economies would argue for consolidation of regions rather than the creation of new ones.

Governance and Accountability

The potential benefits of decentralization depend crucially on governance. By all accounts, the jury on the link between decentralization and the prospects for improved governance at the local level is still out, and14 several concerns about the prospects of decentralization/devolution in developing countries.15 On the one hand government closer to the people reduces monitoring costs of the electorate, and competition among local governments could drive out corruption. On the other, local governments seem to be more prone to elite capture.

The fall of New Order regime in 1999 and the subsequent “Big Bang” decentralization of 2001 promised to fundamentally change the locus of responsibility and accountability for public service delivery in Indonesia. By “bringing government closer to the people,” decentralization can serve as a driving force towards generating improvements in Indonesia’s notably poor governance environment. Symptomatic of this governance environment is that Indonesia continues to be perceived as suffering from one of the highest internationally levels of corruption. This has proven corrosive to both public service delivery and the private-sector environment.16

Numerous governance issues have received public attention in Indonesia. These include money politics (“politik uang”), centered especially on concerns that local elections for regional heads have been increasingly bought. Local political elites in executive and legislature has to the political aspirations of the wider populations (“politik elit”). The new local heads have increasingly started acting a little kings (“raja kecil”) who are neither accountable to central authorities, or their local constituencies. Meanwhile, rent-seeking has proliferated in many regions due to the proliferation of these new actors and increased the dangers of overgrazing (many hands of “campur tangan”).17 This problem is accentuated by the belief on some parts of the executive and legislative that their tenures are limited, and hence their access to rents is limited as well.

To blame decentralization per se for these weaknesses seems far fetched. Moreover, the weaknesses in governance at the regional level should be considered relatively to those taking place at the center. Whether these incidences of weak governance are systematic remains to be seen. In part, weak accountability of the head of region could be temporary: many heads of regions have not yet been elected, but were appointed by the government before local elections took place. The vaguely defined authorities and functions of the regions undermines accountability as well, but these are likely to become clearer over time. But other, more fundamental causes seem at work as well. One issue is Indonesia’s strong party system that limits the interest local councilors take in their local constituents. Another is that Government Regulations on the accountability of the head of region have strengthened the position of the head such that it has become almost impossible for regional parliaments to fire him. And finally, absence of formal accountability mechanisms such as external audit of regional governments also undermines accountability.


References

1 The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. This paper draws on the forthcoming World Bank Regional Public Expenditure Review for Indonesia, and on Hofman, Kaiser and Kajatmiko (2001). The authors wish to express thanks to Jorge Martinez, Roy Bahl, Richard Bird, Roy Kelly, Dana Weist, Blane Lewis, Bernd May, and Machfud Sidik for the many helpful discussions on the topic of the paper. We thank Fitria Fitriani for excellent research assistance.

9 Gabe Ferazzi, (2002): Obligatory Functions and Minimum Standards: A Preliminary Review of the Indonesian approach GTZ SfDM, Report No/2002-2, March.

10 Conversation with Bernd May.

11 The then-Minister of Justice argued in a letter to all ministries that the MPR decision constitutionally higher than a law) does not apply as far as ministerial decrees are concerned.

12 The “positive list” approach came from an idea mentioned in an IMF technical assistance report in the year 2000. The report argued that no judgment on assignment of revenues could be made without a detailed costing of expenditure assignments.

13 One exception familiar to the authors are the two Provincial Health Projects financed by the World Bank. These projects create province-level cooperative structures among he local governments to develop and implement province-wide health policies.

14 Save for a brief federalist constitution in the wake of independence from Holland in 1949, Indonesia’s prevailing constitution of 1945 is that of a unitary state.

15 See for example Crook and Sverrisson (1999) or Azfar et al. (2000;2001).

16 See for example O.B. Server (1996) and Partnership for Governance Reform (2001)

17 In December 2001, the Head of the DPR’s budget commission, Benny Pasaribu, created a stir when he claimed that 40 percent of the General Block Allocation Grant (DAU), implicitly arguing that more control and oversight from the center was needed (Jakarta Post 2001a). Arguably capacities differ widely by islands. On islands like Java-Bali capacities can generally be argued to be sufficient, which the situation more difficult in Local Governments in some of the Outer Islands.

Minggu, 12 Desember 2010

Tanggung Jawab dan Beban Kerja di Satuan Kerja Pengelolaa Keuangan Daerah (SKPKD) Kabupaten Jombang

Satu-satunya satuan kerja yang memiliki fungsi sebagai Satuan Kerja Pengelola Keuangan Daerah (SKPKD) di Jombang adalah Dinas Pendapatan, Pengelolaan Keuangan dan Aset Daerah (DPPKAD). Secara historis DPPKAD merupakan unit organisasi hasil transformasi dari Badan Pengelola Keuangan Daerah (BPKD) yang berasal dari peleburan tiga unit kerja yaitu Dinas Pendapatan, Bagian Keuangan Setda dan Bagian Kas Daerah Setda.

Peleburan ini merupakan tuntutan reformasi birokrasi di bidang pengelolaan keuangan daerah yang diawali dengan terbitnya UU No. 17 Tahun 2003 tentang Keuangan Negara yang kemudian disusul dengan beberapa paket regulasi keuangan seperti UU No.1 Tahun 2004 tentang Perbendaharaan Negara, UU No. 33 Tahun 2004 tentang Perimbangan Keuangan Antara Pemerintah Pusat dan Pemerintah Daerah, PP No. 24 Tahun 2005 tentang Standar Akuntansi Pemerintah, Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 58 Tahun 2005 tentang Pengelolaan Keuangan Daerah dan Permendagri No. 13 Tahun 2006 tentang Pedoman Pengelolaan Keuangan Daerah yang kemudian dirubah dengan Permendagri No. 59 Tahun 2007 tentang Perubahan Permendagri No. 13 Tahun 2006 tentang Pengelolaan Keuangan Daerah. Rangkaian perubahan regulasi tersebut merupakan tuntutan masyarakat dan upaya sistematis pemerintah dalam menjalankan reformasi birokrasi di bidang pengelolaan keuangan negara/daerah.

Paket regulasi keuangan negara/daerah di atas, satu sisi memberi ”angin segar” dalam upaya menciptakan good governance governmen yang telah lama didambakan masyarakat. Namun, di sisi lain menuntut pengelola keuangan daerah khususnya Satuan Kerja Pengelola Keuangan Daerah (SKPKD) bekerja lebih hati-hati, jeli dan tidak boleh melakukan kesalahan mengingat resiko pekerjaan yang terkait secara langsung pada sanksi hukum yang relatif tidak ringan, sementara sistem pertanggung jawaban dan pelaporan keuangan daerah memiliki sistem kerja dan pengawasan yang berlapis dan membutuhkan alokasi tenaga dan waktu yang lebih besar.

Sebagai satu-satunya Satuan Kerja Pengelola Keuangan Daerah (SKPKD), DPPKAD memiliki tanggung jawab dan beban kerja yang tidak ringan. Selain menjalankan fungsi administrasi internal yang dilaksanakan Tata Usaha, DPPKAD juga berfungsi sebagai konsolidator di bidang Pendapatan, Anggaran, Bendahara Umum Daerah, Aset dan Akuntansi serta pengelolaan gaji PNS yang juga dikelola Tata Usaha. Sedangkan fungsi khusus lainnya yang memiliki beban dan resiko pekerjaan relatif lebih berat adalah pengelolaan dana bantuan keuangan dan dana hibah.

Dari perspektif pengambilan keputusan, semua fungsi di atas membutuhkan pengambilan keputusan yang lebih hati-hati, jeli, cepat, tepat dan cerdas dengan memperhatikan sinergitas berbagai aspek tuntutan pelayanan, suasana lingkungan politik dengan semua regulasi yang mengatur proses dan pertanggung-jawabannya.

Dalam menjalankan fungsinya, DPPKAD memiliki aktivitas utama menjalankan kewajibannya menyediakan layanan terkait dengan pengelolaan keuangan mulai dari perencanaan anggaran daerah, transaksi penerimaan daerah, permintaan pencairan dana, pengendalian aset dan pengelolaan gaji PNS dalam suatu sistem akuntansi yang berakhir pada penyusunan laporan pertanggung jawaban. Semua aktivitas utama tersebut menuntut penyelesaian dalam waktu yang singkat. Hal ini tentu menguras energi dan waktu jam kerja efektif pada umumnya, mengingat volume pekerjaan yang tidak sedikit dan perlu kejelian dalam penyelesaiannya agar tidak terjadi kesalahan baik kesalahan administratif maupun kesalahan berupa pelanggaran hukum atas peraturan yang berlaku.

Secara fakta dalam aktivitasnya sehari-hari, setiap pegawai di DPPKAD dituntut memiliki kesadaran tinggi atas penyelesaian tugasnya masing-masing. Karena jika tidak, pekerjaan baru keesokan hari akan menambah beban yang lebih tinggi mengingat kompleksitas masing-masing pekerjaan yang relatif rumit dan membutuhkan keahlian khusus. Selain itu, penundaan pekerjaan memiliki dampak yang lebih luas dari sekedar beban kerja, yaitu berupa penghambatan jalannya ”roda” pemerintahan dan pembangunan daerah.

Hal ini yang menyebabkan sering terlihat banyak pegawai di DPPKAD menyelesaikan tugasnya hingga larut malam bahkan tidak jarang sampai dini hari dan sering pula penyelesaian tugas tersebut dilaksanakan pada hari libur kerja.

Selain hal tersebut, selaku konsolidator, DPPKAD memiliki kewajiban melaksanakan konsolidasi tugas yang terkait dengan pengelolaan keuangan daerah dengan semua Satuan Kerja Perangkat Daerah (SKPD) dan Badan Usaha Milik Daerah (BUMD) yang ada di Kabupaten Jombang. Aktivitas konsolidasi ini, sering dilakukan berminggu-minggu tanpa putus baik pada saat jam kerja efektif maupun di luar jam kerja efektif.

Hal ini terjadi, khususnya pada saat Penyusunan APBD, Penyusunan Laporan Keuangan Pemerintah Daerah (LKPD), pelayanan PBB terbuka untuk masyarakat (bulan panutan), sensus barang milik daerah, permintaan pencairan dana menjelang hari raya idul fitri dan akhir tahun atau pada saat terjadi perubahan/kenaikan gaji PNS secara nasional. Hal serupa juga terjadi pada saat BPK melakukan auditing LKPD yang mengharuskan semua pegawai di DPPKAD siap setiap saat dalam melayani permintaan auditor BPK untuk menyiapkan dokumen-dokumen pertanggung-jawaban yang hendak di audit.

Di luar itu, pencairan dana bantuan keuangan dan/atau dana hibah juga cukup menyita waktu dan energi. Petugas yang terlibat diharuskan memiliki kesabaran lebih tinggi mengingat pada umumnya penerima bantuan keuangan adalah masyarakat umum dalam jumlah yang besar dan notabene memiliki keterbatasan pengetahuan tentang syarat administratif yang dibutuhkan, sehingga petugas harus meluangkan lebih banyak waktu untuk menjelaskan secara persuasif persyaratannya. Meskipun persyaratan tersebut sudah dicantumkan atau telah diinformasikan pada saat pengajuan proposal.

Terkait dengan diterbitkannya UU No. 8 Tahun 2008 tentang Pajak Daerah yang mengamanatkan penyerahan beberapa urusan pajak kepada daerah kabupaten/kota diperlukan berbagai persiapan dan memiliki implikasi pada penambahan potensi beban kerja yang lebih besar. Potensi beban kerja yang dapat diidentifikasi secara dini adalah pekerjaan analisis pajak, pendataan, penerbitan dokumen dan proses penerimaan daerah. Hal tersebut tentu saja membutuhkan keahlian khusus dan persiapan yang matang sehingga penerimaan pajak daerah bisa meningkat, baik secara agregat maupun secara rasio namun tidak menghambat laju pertumbuhan ekonomi daerah.

Jumat, 10 Desember 2010

Sistem Keseimbangan Reward dan Punishment untuk Reformasi Birokrasi

Kesan atas buruknya pelayanan instansi pemerintah merupakan tantangan berat yang harus dihadapai dalam proses reformasi birokrasi. Beberapa kesan yang berhasil ditemu-kenali telah memberikan gambaran umum pelayanan publik yang secara bertahap tetapi pasti harus dibenahi.

Dalam beberapa kasus, layanan yang diberikan terkesan terlalu birokratis, tidak transparan, terlalu panjang dan dirasakan seringkali berbelit-belit. Hal ini juga diperburuk oleh kurangnya spirit pelayanan prima oleh aparat penyedia layanan. Spirit bahwa birokrasi berkewajiban melayani masyarakat dan tidak untuk dilayani belum melekat pada budaya kerja aparatur.

Selain itu, layanan yang diberikan kurang didukung oleh aparat yang kompeten dan profesional. Keluhan tidak profesionalnya pelayanan publik yang muncul dari masyarakat seringkali diperburuk oleh rendahnya kompetensi aparat. Kondisi ini pada giliranya akan berpengaruh kepada kinerja pelayanan kepada publik secara keseluruhan.

Pada beberapa jenis layanan publik masih ditemukan adanya praktek korupsi, kolusi, dan nepotisme (KKN). Kondisi ini umumnya terjadi karena adanya beberapa situasi yang saling mempengaruhi satu dengan lainnya.

Di satu sisi, kondisi aparat dengan tingkat penghasilan yang relatif rendah terperangkap dalam mental dan perilaku korup. Di sisi yang lain, masyarakat pengguna layanan juga belum memiliki spirit untuk mendahulukan yang lebih berhak, dan belum sepenuhnya mau melaksanakan semua kewajibannya secara benar. Sebagian masyarakat bahkan menempuh jalan pintas untuk memperoleh berbagai fasilitas pelayanan yang menguntungkan diri sendiri, meski akibatnya akan berdampak buruk terhadap kinerja pelayanan publik secara keseluruhan. Untuk itu, upaya pemberantas KKN tanpa pandang bulu diharapkan akan mendorong komitmen berbagai pihak untuk secara bersama-sama menghilangkan kebiasaan buruk tersebut.

Sehubungan dengan hal tersebut, berbagai langkah kongkrit seharusnya dilaksanakan dengan mengkaitkan secara langsung antara kinerja layanan, kompetensi aparat, tanggung jawab dan resiko pekerjaan dengan kesejahteraan pegawai sebagai langkah positif untuk meningkatkan pelayanan kepada masyarakat.

Untuk dapat memberikan pelayanan terbaik ada tiga hal yang harus dibenahi, yaitu: Pertama, organisasi harus diatur dan disusun berdasarkan fungsi untuk menghasilkan output dan outcome yang sesuai dengan pelayanan yang diharapkan masyarakat/pelanggan. Kedua, proses bisnis juga harus dibenahi agar tidak saja akuntabel dan transparan, tetapi juga ringkas, singkat dan murah. Ketiga, untuk menjalankan itu semua dibutuhkan SDM yang kompeten serta bekerja secara terukur dan disiplin.

Program pembenahan tiga hal di atas dapat dijalankan apabila sistem reward dan punishment dijalankan secara seimbang. Keuntungan dari penerapan sistem reward dan punishment yang seimbang adalah: menurunnya peluang korupsi; budaya kerja semakin baik; dan keluhan masyarakat/pelanggan menurun. Keuntungan lain dari penerapan sistem reward dan punishment yang seimbang adalah terbentuknya sinergitas antara kinerja, integritas serta disiplin pegawai.

Secara umum hubungan antara penerapan sistem reward dan punishment yang seimbang dengan terbentuknya sinergitas antara kinerja, integritas serta disiplin pegawai adalah:

  1. Setiap pegawai dituntut menghasilkan kinerja yang sesuai dengan tuntutan pekerjaan dan organisasi
  2. Memiliki integritas yang sesuai dengan tuntutan organisasi dan masyarakat
  3. Disiplin dalam melaksanakan tugas dan menaati jam kerja
  4. Setiap pelanggaran kinerja, integritas dan disiplin, diancam dengan sanksi pemotongan rewards yang menjadi hak pegawai yang bersangkutan

Keseimbangan reward dan punishment paling tidak membutuhkan empat syarat, yaitu: Pertama, dilakukan dengan cara diskriminasi dengan penerapan job grading (pemeringkatan kerja). Kedua, analisis beban kerja. Ketiga, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). Ke-empat, assessment centre (pusat penilaian). Sementara pelaksanaannya dapat dilakukan secara bertahap, dengan memilih salah satu satuan kerja sebagai pilot project.

Di dalam sistem birokrasi publik di negara-negara yang relatif bersih, kita selalu bisa menyaksikan bahwa prinsip reward dan punishment yang seimbang benar-benar ditegakkan. Kita bisa perhatikan bagaimana mekanisme ini berjalan di Singapura, sebuah negara kecil yang relatif berhasil mengendalikan korupsi dalam bentuk suap.

Ketika seorang pengemudi mobil di Singapura melakukan pelanggaran karena parkir tidak pada tempatnya dan tertangkap basah oleh seorang petugas polisi, sistem reward and punishment langsung berjalan. Seandainya pengemudi mobil akan menyuap polisi, dia harus berhitung apakah polisi tersebut bisa disuap dan tidak melaporkan niat menyuap tersebut kepada pejabat kepolisian yang lebih tinggi. Jika setelah terjadi suap, polisi itu melaporkan kasusnya, justru penyuap akan mendapat denda lebih berat dan polisi tadi akan mendapat imbalan, misalnya dalam bentuk credit point untuk kenaikan pangkatnya.

Hal yang sama terjadi dari pihak si polisi, seandainya dia ingin menerima suap, dia harus memastikan bahwa pengemudi mobil itu tidak akan melaporkan dirinya ke divisi Internal Affairs di kepolisian. Jika ternyata pengemudi mobil melaporkan polisi tersebut, dia akan mendapatkan keringanan denda sedangkan petugas polisi tadi akan mendapatkan catatan kondite buruk, mungkin bisa diturunkan pangkatnya.