Regional autonomy and Public Services during a pandemic

Several disaster conditions that have occurred show that the role of the central government is still vital in accelerating the process. resilience from every emergency situation from disasters to pandemics that are happening like now. The question is whether in an emergency situation, regional autonomy actually becomes boomerang for the handling and recovery process? What conditions in regional autonomy hamper the handling of the pandemic?

To explore this issue, the Populi Forum raised the theme "Regional Autonomy and Public Services During the Pandemic” on Thursday, November 4, 2021 with speakers Cheka Virgowansyah (Director of FKKPD, Directorate General of Regional Autonomy, Ministry of Home Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia), Panji Anugrah Permana, S.IP., M.Sc., Dr. phil (Lecturer in Political Science, UI), Armand Suparman (Regional Autonomy Implementation Supervisory Committee/KPPOD). The discussion was moderated by Dimas Ramadhan (Researcher, Populi Center) and was conducted online via the zoom application.

At the beginning of the discussion, Armand Suparman highlighted the impact of public services during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for local governments. "There are three main impacts on regions due to this pandemic, namely a declining economy, increasing poverty rates, and low regional fiscal capacity." Although the government has responded quickly to this problem through several regulations and programs, this policy has actually given rise to many problems in the regions.

Armand continued, the challenges of public services today and in the future lie in three major issues, namely regulation, bureaucracy and digitalization. "Overlapping regulations, a bureaucratic mentality that prioritizes sectoral egos, and digitalization capabilities that are faced with service capacity and integration are still the main problems of public services, especially during the pandemic," he said.

Armand conveyed the need for an adaptive and innovative bureaucracy to produce quality, accountable, effective and efficient services so that the state is present through excellent public services. Armand further explained, "The key word when we talk about bureaucratic reform is improvement from the upstream". Unclear regulations give rise to many loopholes in interpretation and opportunities for deviation by several public service figures. Quoting the Indonesian Ombudsman report, KKPOD highlighted how high the public's negative sentiment towards public services is, especially during a pandemic like today.

Public services that focus on people's welfare are the main goal (ultimate goal), a goal that will be achieved if the prerequisites include a policy framework, political leadership, central-regional relations, and good local government capacity. In addition, Arman also conveyed the need for good decentralization, at least in three things, namely fiscal decentralization, political decentralization, and administrative decentralization. No less important is the importance of building good relationships stakeholders between government, private sector and society.

The second resource person, Cheka Virgowansyah, Director of FKKPD, Directorate General of Regional Autonomy, Ministry of Home Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, conveyed the principle of organizing public services during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak is to prioritize public safety. Changes in the way ASN work must in this case be more adaptive to the current situation and conditions.

Furthermore, Cheka conveyed several challenges of public services during this pandemic, including public awareness and compliance with the implementation of Health protocols (prokes), gaps in apparatus capacity, optimization of one-stop services, budget limitations, digitalization and integration of policies or application-based services. Regarding this last challenge, Cheka realized that currently there are still many overlapping public service applications. For this reason, the Ministry of Home Affairs is currently working on a single service that is integrated with all public services.

Panji Anugrah Permana, a Political Science Lecturer at the University of Indonesia, at the beginning of his presentation assessed that the government's stuttering at the beginning of the pandemic was a natural thing and was experienced by many other countries. Panji gave an example of government policies at the beginning of the pandemic that were oriented towards public safety, but their implementation was more oriented towards saving the economy. "The condition that we call the government's stuttering at the beginning of the pandemic is a natural thing not only in Indonesia but also in other countries, because this is an epidemic condition," he said. In line with the previous speaker, Panji agreed that there were many overlapping public service policy issues, especially during the pandemic. "This chaos occurred because of ambiguous policies and the large sectoral egos in the regions."

Panji realized that the issue of public services during the pandemic was a matter of different regional capabilities, including the capacity of economic and human resources. According to him, there needs to be a good formula before issuing policies in order to find a more appropriate approach. "It can be done engagement with academics for example, before issuing a policy, this is very good to do so that the policy issued is based on the needs of the community". According to Panji, this method can be part of active public participation.

In the closing session of the discussion, Panji emphasized the importance of upstream improvements such as in the process of choosing leaders through electoral politics. No less important is the need for policy synchronization through regulations and all their derivatives so that a common understanding arises. In line with Panji, Cheka said that improvements must continue to be carried out continuously so that public services, especially during the pandemic, are more adaptive and optimal. Meanwhile, Armand said that in terms of excellent public services, it is important to strengthen regional autonomy, considering that Indonesia's progress begins with regional progress.

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