How to enable local leaders to perform  Mulya Amri  ;   PhD candidate at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, whose research interests include urban politics

JAKARTA POST,  08 Desember 2014

                                                                                                                       

Now that Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has become the President, Indonesians expect people’s living conditions to improve rapidly. Having a result-oriented leader at the national level rightly raises hope. However, reality checks show that in decentralization, results at the local level are determined by local leaders and institutions. As much as we may romanticize the power of the President, our mayors, local councilors and local politics are more likely to determine the quality of public services we get. For the central government, delivering public services is like developing the economy: its main role is to create an enabling environment where good local leaders emerge and do their best to serve the population. There are three ways to create such an environment: performance-based decentralization, constituent-oriented city council and critical and educated citizens. Most public services in Indonesia are now carried out by local governments. City governments have money from central government transfers as well as, to a smaller extent, own-source revenues such as local taxes, fees and retributions. The bulk of central government transfers are unconditional and determined by a formula that attempts to close the gap between a city’s fiscal needs and fiscal capacity. Own-source revenue is a part of fiscal capacity; thus, all things being equal, having higher own-source revenue reduces a city’s opportunity to receive money from the central government. This principle reflects one objective of Indonesia’s decentralization: redistribution of wealth across geographic regions. But it discourages performance! Own-source revenue reflects a city’s ability to attract people and businesses and to effectively collect payments from them — all of which indicate government effectiveness. This should be rewarded (rather than penalized), if not by fiscal resources, then by special autonomy. Currently Indonesia acknowledges special autonomy for certain provinces, but this is largely determined by political considerations rather than performance. I argue that special autonomy should be extended to cities and evaluated on a periodic basis, as a reward for those that perform well. In contrast, cities that do not show adequate performance for multiple periods could lose their autonomy status and be “tucked-in” under the authority of their respective provinces. This would allow an incentive mechanism for local leaders to deliver quality public services. Second, we need a system of local politics where city councils (DPRD) are run by qualified and responsive legislators. Indonesia has a large number of sub-national legislative members: around 17,560 people at the city and regency level (average of 29 per city or regency). In contrast, city councils in the US have an average of seven to 10 members, with Los Angeles as the second largest city (3.8 million people) having only 15 council members, each representing one electoral district. Consequently, with so many faces in Indonesia’s local legislature, councilors tend to be “faceless”, anonymous and interchangeable. Few people are aware of the councilors’ track records, before or after they were elected. Worse, we have seen many instances where councilors are characterized by loyalty to short-term rather than long-term personal interests, and to party politics rather than the larger interests of the society. In an ideal world, councilors play a critical role in making sure that the mayor and city government conduct their activities according to the people’s best interest. Consequently, each councilor should have good relationships with the people they represent. Citizens should know which councilor(s) represent their district and have access to their phone numbers and email addresses. A more responsive city council can be achieved by shedding more light on local legislators. For example, council secretariats could conduct yearly polls about citizens’ perception of their local council members. Councilors who are deemed to be most popular, responsive and productive would then be rewarded with media coverage, which is a major incentive for their longer term political careers. Third, to ensure long-term progress, we ultimately must rely on a condition where citizens are critical and educated. When asked about what makes some cities perform better than others, many answered: leadership. Since the start of decentralization, Indonesia has seen the rise of promising mayors by way of local election. However, we have also seen many cases where the city succumbs to its original state of underperformance once the good leader completes his or her term and moves on to other ventures. In other words, good leadership is not necessarily sustainable. A few cities, however, continue to perform well term after term (Surabaya, Surakarta, Balikpapan and others). Somehow, the people of these cities have figured out how to continuously elect good leaders. Or, the institutions in these cities have been established such that whoever becomes leader, the system that pushes local government to perform is effectively sustained. In these cities, good leadership is not only found at the top level, but exists at multiple levels. They are the counterparts of a critical and educated population, who can distinguish good leaders from otherwise, and do not succumb to money and politics when casting their votes. High hopes are now placed on Jokowi’s shoulders to deliver better public services. Attention should be equally placed on local governance. To achieve continuous good performance at the local level, the central government needs to create an enabling environment through performance-based decentralization, constituent-oriented local councils and critical and educated citizens.. ●