Third, the restoration of government employees with work agreements (PPPK). PPPK refers to civil service officers hired for national development priorities within a certain period. For example, the child nutrition program (to reduce stunting), which is part of thematic and impactful bureaucratic reform, is targeted at 14% in 2024 or below 680,000 per year.
The program requires researchers, nutritionists and medical specialists for three years work period. Therefore, PPPK recruitment should focus on professionals or diaspora who are certified, competent and experienced in stunting. PPPK was not designed to “save” the honorarium-based workers. In the future, every ASN must have a certificate of competency or profession to be legible for a functional position.
Fourth, fair and proper welfare. The disparity of ASN welfare among agencies, regions and positions is regrettably widening. This triggers the problem of ASN redistribution, particularly in frontier, outermost and underdeveloped regions. The sixth president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, deserves profound appreciation for issuing Presidential Regulation 81/2010 on the bureaucratic reform grand design.
At the end of his term of office, he made significant improvements to the welfare of state apparatus, not only the public officers but also the Armed Forces and the National Police, by providing performance allowance. He concluded his term with a draft of ASN Law 5/2014.
It has been nearly a decade, but regulatory derivative policies such as salary reform, ASN benefits and facilities, and pension and old-age benefits, including management of ASN in the frontier, outermost and underdeveloped regions and affirmative ASN working in the highrisk category, have yet to be issued. Those regulations were supposed to answer the demand for ASN, who can be recruited from professionals (pro-hired) and universities’ best talents.
They can also answer the need for specialist doctors that President Joko Widodo complained about during his recent visit to the Komodo Regional General Hospital in East Nusa Tenggara, which cost IDR 200 billion. The Omnibus Health Bill must also be synchronized with the planned revision of the ASN Law, which, unfortunately, remains absent from ASN management reform in the health sector.
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Fifth, structuring government institutions in ASN management. Besides KASN, four other institutions (the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform, the National Civil Service Agency, the State Administrative Agency and the Ministry of Home Affairs) can actually be merged into one institution: the Ministry of State Apparatus and Bureaucratic Transformation. KASN must be maintained and focused as a judge for any distortions and inconsistencies in ASN management policies. Such a contextual bureaucratic transformation is the key to an impactful bureaucracy for Golden Indonesia 2045.