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Public Service Performance and Challenges in the Land of Haluoleo
Kendari, 24 January 2012. The university of Haluoleo in collaboration with the World Bank, supported by the Government of Southeast Sulawesi Province, CIDA, AusAID and BAKTI Foundation, released a new report on the 2012 Southeast Sulawesi Province Public Expenditure Analysis. Based on this study, Southeast Sulawesi is a developing province with an economic growth which has been consistently higher than the national average in the last five years. Poverty rate has dropped from 21.3 percent in 2007 to 14.6 percent in 2011, which is lower than the national average, as with the province’s rate of unemployment.
However, the province still faces a number of challenges. Its economic growth has not been able to lift the per capita gross regional domestic production (GRDP) which is still below the national level. Quality of life needs to be improved, reflected by the human development index (HDI) which lies 25th out of 33 provinces in Indonesia.
The report underlies the achievements and challenges in four strategic sectors. The performance of education in Southeast Sulawesi has not really contributed to the HDI due to the low rate of literacy. There still lies a huge disparity in health services among the districts. In the infrastructure sector, the report highlights the importance of promoting infrastructure development by the local government to support the growth of tertiary sectors, particularly trade, which has rapidly grown in recent years. It is also important to revitalize the agriculture sector as it can play an important role in the growth of the province.
Although the economic growth of Southeast Sulawesi Province is above 8 percent, there has been a slowdown in its agriculture sector in the last three years. Akhmad Firman, head of the research team from Haluoleo University, responded, “As a province aiming to increase economic growth which is based on agriculture, a slowdown in the growth of the agriculture sector in the last three years must quickly be addressed.”
Southeast Sulawesi has an opportunity to promote the quality of development. This is reflected from the per capita local government spending which is among the top ten in the country. The report recommends that the local government make their policies and programs more focused and improve efficiency in using its budget. Gregorius D.V. Pattinasarany, senior economist of the World Bank said, “It is vital for the local government of Southeast Sulawesi to improve the quality of planning and budgeting, in order for spending to be optimized in achieving the development targets and promoting public service performance.”
At the provincial level, the report mentions utilization of a transfer spending instruments (financial assistance for the districts) by the provincial government in the last two years. The transfer spending is used for education and health. Ihsan Haerudin, head of the World Bank’s research team for the report, said, “Financial information on transfer spending needs to be improved. This will help the community be more aware of the provincial government’s commitments on free education, scholarships, free health services, block grants for villages under the Bahteramas program.”
