Govt: 5% of state firm officials have yet to report wealth

Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 12/31/2010

The State-Owned Enterprises Ministry revealed Friday that up to 5 percent of the total number of officials working at state firms had yet to submit wealth reports.

 There are currently around 7,150 officers working for state firms.

“About 95 percent of officers have submitted wealth reports,” SOE Minister Mustafa Abubakar said, adding this was an improvement on the figures in June  when only 59 percent of officers had reported their wealth.

Officers who had failed to submit reports were possibly waiting for decrees for new positions or about to retire.

65 percent of RI workers outsourced, contract-based

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 12/23/2010

Sixty-five percent of workers in Indonesia apparently work for outsourcing companies or are contract workers, indicating a more than double increase from the 2005 figure.

The president of the Confederation of Indonesian Prosperity Trade Unions, Rekson Silaban, said Thursday that five years ago permanent workers accounted for 70 percent of the total workforce in Indonesia, leaving only 30 percent working on an outsourced or contract basis.

“The data was cited by the World Bank and the ILO two months ago. That means only 35 percent of our workers are now permanent workers,” he told a press conference in Jakarta as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

“That means that only 9.5 million people in Indonesia have permanent jobs through to retirement,” he said, adding that there were currently a total of 33 million formal workers in Indonesia.

Rekson expressed concern over the issue, reiterating that contract-based and outsourced workers were in a disadvantaged position and that they rarely won a case when facing their employers at the Industrial Relations Court.

Migrant worker remittances reached US$5 billion

The Jakarta Post | Thu, 12/09/2010 10:53 AM

Total remittance garnered by Indonesia's more than 4 million migrant workers as of September reached US$5 billion, or around Rp 45 trillion.

There are now 4.32 million Indonesian workers overseas sending money back home, according to the central bank's release Thursday.

Bank Indonesia, the ministry of manpower and transmigration and the Placement and Protection of Overseas Labor (BNP2TKI) have been monitoring migrant workers placements since 2005.

The central bank said this was important to count the total flow of foreign exchange sent by TKI or remittances, which showed improvement over the last few years.

President: RI`s migrant workers send home US$6 bln annually

Antara News, Monday, September 27, 2010 22:08 WIB

Jakarta (ANTARA News) -President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that 6 billion dollars annually were sent back to Indonesia by millions of Indonesian migrant workers through the formal banking system.

"Many of those Indonesian were not accustomed to the banking services when they were in Indonesia. This shows that traditional mindset can be changed and the migrant workers are in fact going to the bank," the head of state in his opening address at the Second Alliance Financial Inclusion (AFI) Global Policy Forum, here, Monday.

According to Yudhoyono, developing people`s financial literacy is as important as developing their financial capability. It was important that people were taught about the importance and benefit of accessing financial services.

"In 2008, we introduced a national campaign called `Ayo ke bank` or in English `Let`s go to the bank`. Last year, we launched another campaign in 2009 with the slogan of `whatever the product, ensure the benefits, understand the risks and consider the costs`," he said.

People living with a low income must be given access to affordable financial services, which later could unlock many financial opportunities to improve their well-being, and close the economic and social gap.

"This will ultimately reduce poverty and inequality," he said.

According to the World Bank, some 1.4 billion people still live with an income of less than 1.25 dollars a day, therefore poverty eradication is crucial," he said.

"For Indonesia, poverty alleviation is a top priority. It is at the heart of our four-track development strategy, which is pro-growth, pro-job, pro-poor, and pro-environment," he said.

Fighting poverty required systematic, sustained and coordinated policy measures supported by necessary resources. Indonesia`s anti-poverty efforts have shown encouraging result, as . the number of Indonesians living below the poverty line has decreased from 16.7 percent of the population in 2004 to 14.1 percent in 2009.

"Even during the crisis we can reduce poverty to 13.3 percent in March 2010, " the president said.

The Second Annual AFI Global Policy Forum (GPF) dubbed "Taking Financial Inclusion to the Next Level" is being organized by AFI and Bank of Indonesia, in Jimbaran, Bali, from September 27 to 29, 2010.

Some 350 senior financial policymakers from over 60 developing countries, are participating in the Forum to discuss efforts to increase access to financial services for the poor through innovative policymaking. The first Forum was organized in Nairobi last year.

Related Article:

G20 told to provide financial services to the poor

Govt to raise civil servants’ salaries by 10 percent

Erwida Maulia, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 04/28/2010 4:19 PM | Business

Civil servants and military and police personnel will have their salary increased by 10 percent next year, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati says.

“In 2011, there will be a salary increase which will be slightly higher than the inflation rate, which is predicted to reach 5 percent. The hike will be 10 percent. This is for the sake of the welfare of civil servants, the Indonesian Military soldiers and police personnel,” Mulyani told governors and regents meeting to discuss development programs for 2011 at the Bidakara Hotel in South Jakarta on Wednesday.

Mulyani said the state apparatus would also receive the 13th month salary.

Pensioners will also enjoy the increase, the minister added.

“It has become our policy in the last five years [to raise salaries],” Mulyani said.

The government, she said, would allocate Rp 81.3 trillion for the remuneration of civil servants, military and police personnel, the recruitment of 100,000 new civil servants and for bureaucratic reforms.

HSBC employs expatriates illegally: Sources

Ridwan Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 01/19/2010 10:08 PM

London-based HSBC Group, which are in the process of acquiring a majority stake in publicly listed Bank Ekonomi Raharja, has illegally employed expatriates, raising unrest among the bank’s local employees, according to sources.

The recent legal complaint submitted by the bank’s laborer community to the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry and Bank Indonesia, with copies made available to The Jakarta Post on Monday, revealed HBSC Indonesia had employed at least 13 expatriates who had no official permit to work and stay in the country.

“The 13 expatriates occupy strategic positions, including the human resources manager post,” a bank employee asking for anonymity told the Post when asked to confirm the complaint Tuesday.

Executives of the Indonesian Workers Organization accommodating the bank’s employees, confirmed the employment of illegal expatriates but said it did not want to sensationalize the issue to help protect workers from intimidation and punishment from the bank’s new management.

“HSBC has replaced local executives with expatriates to occupy strategic positions following the holding group’s recent acquisition of the bank in its ambitious bid to make Bank Ekonomi a top 10 bank in the country," he said.

The director of labor norms supervision at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, Mudji Handojo, said that three expatriates who occupied director positions at the bank had been deported because they had used the three-month business visa to enter and work in the country.

Bank Ekonomi chief human resources officer Endy Abdurrahman denied the report that it had employed many expatriates, saying so far it had only two expatriates of around 2,000 workers employed by the group.

“Bank Ekonomi Raharja currently employs two expatriates on work permits from a total of 2,400 employees,” he said.

Jamsostek warns of massive layoffs

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 01/12/2010 9:13 AM

State-owned insurance company PT Jamsostek has warned of massive layoffs this year following the implementation of the ASEAN-China free trade area (ACFTA) starting this year.

“Millions of workers in the formal sector will lose their jobs as many manufacturing companies are expected to be unable to compete with Chinese products that will flood the Indonesian market,” Jamsostek’s operation and service director Ahmad Anshori told The Jakarta Post here on Monday.

He said more and more workers would enter the informal sector leaving them unprotected and underpaid.

Millions of workers, including those dismissed due to the negative impacts of the 2008 global economic crisis, have entered the informal sector, composing almost 70 percent of the workforce of 105 million.

“Besides the crucial impacts of the global financial crisis and the free trade area on employment conditions in the future, Jamsostek’s income and profit will also decline.

“We are preparing programs, including voluntary social security programs for informal workers, in anticipation of the negative impacts,” said Ahmad.

Quoting the results of numerous studies, Ahmad said that around 2.5 million workers in the labor-intensive leather and garment factories and agribusiness industries would lose their jobs as a result of the free trade agreement with China.

As of January this year, cheap garments, agribusiness and steel and leather products from China have entered ASEAN countries, including Indonesia, with zero tariffs, in implementation of the free trade agreement between the Southeast Asian countries and China.

Separately, labor economist and observer Payaman Simanjuntak said that all stakeholders, mainly employers, the government and labor unions should play an active role in improving workers’ skills to improve their productivity, company productivity and enable Indonesian products to compete with those from China and other ASEAN countries.

Indonesia’s labor-intensive garment, textile and agriculture products will be unable to compete with similar products from China mainly because of the low quality of human resources, he said.

“To win the competition and make our products marketable, we have to improve workers’ skills to make them more creative and productive in producing cheaper and better quality products,” he said.

Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu denied the free trade’s negative impacts, saying that Indonesia would be limited to products from six sectors only, and that the ACFTA would also enable Indonesia to import machinery in the six sectors without any taxes.

Meanwhile, Jamsostek’s CEO Hotbonar Sinaga expressed concern over the slow reaction by the government and employers to address the potential impacts of the free trade agreement on domestic employment.

“Besides strengthening the formal sector by improving their skills, the government should pay more attention to the informal sector.

“Both the government and employers should start implementing the national social security system for all, the special benefit program for dismissed workers, and improve the quality of workers in the formal and informal sectors,” he said.

Millions of workers may lose jobs over ACFTA implementation

Antara News, Sunday, January 10, 2010 18:59 WIB

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The implementation of free trade area effective as of January 2010 may reduce the performance of local companies which might be forced to lay off millions of workers, an insurance company executive said.

"Free trade will affect local companies` performance but it could not be avoided because the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) has been agreed a long time so that we have to abide by the agreement," Operational Director of Workers Insurance company (Jamsostek), Ahmad Ansyori said here over the weekend.

He said that many studies had been made on the impact of the free trade area on domestic industries in Indonesia. Most of the studies showed that its impact would be a reason for concern as it would affect workers.

A number of studies have predicted that with the free trade area, about 2.5 million workers could face lay-offs as a result of the declining performance of industries in the country.

The most affected industries would be industries on leather processing, clothing production, textiles and steel industries. The impact would be felt by hundreds of labor-intensive and small companies, he said.

"Based on the studies, about 2.5 million workers could face layoffs. I don`t think the figure would be that high but it would be about 1.8 million," Ansyori said.

He said that the layoff would begin to take place gradually about eight months after the the free trade area became effective.

"I am sure the government will formulate a policy with regard to the matter if the free trade area massively weakens local industries. Probably the government would provide incentives and fiscal facilities as well as expansion of infrastructure projects and agribusiness development," he said.