Decentralization of Forest Administration in Indonesia, Implications ...

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John McCarthy, Christopher Barr, Ida Aju Pradnja Resosudarmo, and Ahmad Dermawan 51 (Art. 99). 22 Significantly, Regulation 34/2002 also explicitly revokes Regulation 6/1999 on Commercial Forestry and the Extraction of Forest Products in Production Forest (Art. 100). As will be discussed in Chapter 5, Regulation 6/1999 was used by district governments to issue large numbers of small-scale HPHH timber extraction permits and forest conversion licenses. In this way, it has played an important role in undermining the MoF’s control over commercial logging, and its revocation by Regulation 34/2002 represents the clearing of a major legislative hurdle for the national government in its efforts to recentralize authority in the forestry sector. 3.9 Revision of the 1999 Regional Autonomy Law Among stakeholders at the national level, concerns about Indonesia’s decentralization process have hardly been limited to policymakers in the MoF. Indeed through 2001, as Regulation 25/2000 and other implementing regulations for the regional autonomy law took effect, a growing chorus of officials within the central government – as well as many civil society groups and private sector actors – expressed concerns about the manner in which decentralization and regional autonomy were occurring in Indonesia. Many of these actors complained about what they called the ‘excesses’ of district governments, many of which had issued regulations or adopted policies that appeared to exceed the powers granted to them under the nation’s regional autonomy law. In the view of many central government officials, Indonesia’s regional autonomy process had resulted in a situation in which district governments were operating with very little accountability, either ‘downward’ to local constituents or ‘upward’ to ‘higher’ levels of government. Many also expressed concerns that district governments frequently had very limited institutional capacity to carry out the administrative responsibilities they had assumed. Whatever the merits of these arguments may be, they inevitably led to calls for revision of Law 22/1999. These calls gained momentum when Megawati Soekarnoputri became President in July 2001. The daughter of Soekarno, Indonesia’s first President, Megawati was widely known to favor a strong central government and to be deeply suspicious of regional autonomy, tending to view it as potentially opening the door to a process of national disintegration (Van Zorge Report 2002). By early 2002, the Megawati government had begun drafting a set of revisions to the regional autonomy law (Kompas, January 30, 2002). In public statements about this process, central government officials generally claimed that legal re-drafting was necessary to resolve the many contradictions and inconsistencies that existed in Law 22/1999 and its implementing regulations. They argued that Law 22 had been too heavily oriented towards defining the rights of district governments under regional autonomy, without adequately specifying their corresponding responsibilities. Moreover, it said little about the rights of either municipal or provincial governments. In addition, they called for a system of checks and balances to support more effective accountability and better coordination among the various levels of government (Kompas, February 5, 2002). As early drafts of a revised law on regional governance circulated during 2002 and 2003, there emerged a lively national dialogue on how the regional autonomy process should be reformed. In August 2003, for instance, the Indonesian Association
52 Origins and Scope of Indonesia’s Decentralization Laws of District Governments (Asosiasi Pemerintah Kabupaten Seluruh Indonesia, APKASI) agreed that the law needed to be revised, but only if the revisions would strengthen and empower the regional governments and would not lead to recentralization. APKASI recommended that the revised law should specify more clearly how authority would be distributed among the various levels of government; how authority would be shared between district executives and the DPRD; a process in which Bupatis could be chosen through direct local elections, and clear mechanisms of accountability of the DPRD to local constituents (Kompas, August 27, 2003). On the other hand, the Indonesian Association of Provincial Governments (Asosiasi Pemerintahan Propinsi Seluruh Indonesia, APPSI) stressed the importance of enhancing the role of the provinces within Indonesia’s decentralized system of regional governance, and of clarifying the relations between the provincial and district governments in order to prevent situations where Governors are bypassed by the Bupatis in important decision-making processes (Kompas, September 25, 2003). For its part, the Indonesian Association of Municipal Legislatures (Asosiasi DPRD Kota Seluruh Indonesia, ADEKSI) voiced concerns that many of the proposed revisions would limit the authority of municipal governments generally, and of local legislatures in particular. In December 2003, the DPR formed a special task force (panitia khusus) to coordinate revision of Law 22/1999 and of Law 25/1999. The task force submitted the revised laws to the DPR on May 10, 2004 and set a target for the laws to be ratified by the end of September 2004, just before the Megawati administration’s term expired. Although this left only four months for the legal review process, the revised laws – Law 32/2004 on Regional Governance and Law 33/2004 on Fiscal Balancing Between the Central Government and Regional Governments – were ratified by the DPR on September 29 and signed by President Megawati on October 15, 2004, just five days before she left office. The stated purpose of Law 32/2004 is to promote regional autonomy that is both ‘concrete’ (nyata) and ‘responsible’ (bertanggung jawab). According to the law’s explanatory notes, this requires that regional autonomy be structured in a manner that “is always oriented towards improving the welfare of society and is continually attentive to the interests and aspirations that arise from within society.” Significantly, the elucidation emphasizes that regional autonomy must “guarantee harmonious relations between one region with another in order to raise their welfare and to avoid disparity between regions.” “Just as importantly,” the text continues, “regional autonomy must guarantee harmonious relations between the Regions and the [central] Government, meaning that it must be able to maintain and protect the integrity of the Nation’s territory and continually uphold the Unified Republic of Indonesia within the framework of promoting the national goals” (Law 32/2004, Elucidation, art. I). Law 32/2004’s emphasis on promoting cooperative relations among regional governments and on ensuring effective coordination between regional governments and Jakarta stands in marked contrast, in both letter and spirit, to Law 22/1999. The 1999 regional autonomy law, it will be recalled, focused almost exclusively on “the delegation of governance authority” to autonomous regions – particularly to
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Decentralization of Forest Administ
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National Library of Indonesia Catal
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iv 4.5 Forest Revenue Sharing 69 4.
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Preface Indonesia is currently ente
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Acknowledgements This study is base
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Abbreviations AAC ACIAR ADEKSI APBD
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IPHHBK IPHHK IPJL IPK IPKR IPKMA IP
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102 Decentralization’s Effects on
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Chapter 6 The Impacts of Decentrali
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110 The Impacts of Decentralization
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122 Decentralization and Recentrali
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References Agrawal, A., Ostrom, E.
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136 References Casson, A. 2001a. De
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138 References GFW/FWI. 2002. The S
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140 References Manurung, E. G. T.,
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142 References Ribot, J. C. 2002. L
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144 References Van Zorge Report. 20
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146 Annex 1. Timeline of events tha
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148 Annex 1. Timeline of events tha
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Annex 2 Indonesian Laws and Regulat
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152 Annex 2. Indonesian Legislation
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154 Annex 2. Indonesian Legislation
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156 Annex 3. Distribution of Shared
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Since the collapse of Soeharto’s
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