by Parliamentary Center | Jun 24, 2017 | News, Clippings, National
12 February 2014
Transparency has become a public demand. The issuance of Law No. 14/2008 about Public Information Openness (UU KIP) has made public bodies incapable of covering up information that people need. The following is an account of information dispute between the Samarinda Environmental Agency (BLH) and the East Kalimantan Mining Advocacy (Jatam).
On 21 March 2013, BLH submitted 63 environmental impact analysis (amdal) documents on all coal mining activities in Samarinda to Jatam. Jatam representative Johansyah Ismail said it was a consequence after six months of dispute at the East Kalimantan Information Commission (KI). BLH was forced through aanmaning or admonition to submit the documents before forced submission by the Samarinda State Court because BLH had violated KI’s legally binding ruling.
Every resident living near coal mining locations is vulnerable to direct and indirect effects from mining operation. Based on the record, many people were affected by mining activities, such as air pollution and loss of water resources.
Coal mining operations also damage roads and are not immune to coal mining accidents. Therefore, public access to information on amdal and mining operation is important for the people.
UU KIP guarantees freedom to information for all people and groups. Public bodies that do not comply with UU KIP will be subjected to prison sentences. Jatam sued BLH to the court six months ago where there was still constitutional guarantee. However, BLH refused to provide data on coal mining activities due to excuses, such as legality of institution and state document confidentiality.
Souce: KaltimPost
by Parliamentary Center | Jun 24, 2017 | News, Clippings, National
12 February 2014
The Centre for Research and Information (Pattiro) said that the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) had not consistently implemented information openness.
“BPK does not give public access to the first and second Hambalang audit report. BPK exempts that information,” said Pattiro executive director Sad Dian Utomo.
According to Sad Dian, the information was given to Commission IX of the DPR in August 2013 so the information is clearly not exempted.
“Based on Article 7 clause (5) of Law No. 15/2006 about Supreme Audit Agency, audit report that has been submitted to DPR, DPD and DPRD is open for public. We are worried that if the reports are not open for the public, there will be political bargaining that can harm the people,” he said.
Sad Dian also questioned BPK’s decision to give the report to the parliament as BPK should’ve only given the report to law enforcement agencies and DPR is not a law enforcement agency and does not have the authority to obtain information containing investigation results and fraud forensic.
He said BPK’s attorney argued that they submitted the audit report to DPR because they needed it for audit. The request from the parliament for the report is also the first time from external party.
“Does the DPR even have rights to ask for audit report? Do they have the authority for that? Because they are not a law enforcement agency that can receive exempted information from BPK, DPR and BPK can be subjected to article 54 clause (1) of Law No. 14/2008 about public information openness,” said Sad Dian.
The aforementioned article 54 states that any party that has no right to receive and/or provide exempted information is subjected to two years of imprisonment and fine of Rp10,000,00.
Source: BeritaSatu
by Parliamentary Center | Jun 24, 2017 | News, Clippings, National
23 February 2014
The Jakarta Legislative Council (DPRD) has been urged to publish their attendance report so that 7,021,514 voters in Jakarta will be able to know their work, according to Jakarta Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) public policy head CecepHandoko.
Cecep said PBHI had sent a letter to DPRD asking for the attendance report as it could become indication of performance of 94 DPRD members who mostly will re-run for legislative elections in 2014.
“DPRD must be more transparent in showing their poor performance, ranging from slow decision on regional budget and unachieved target of passing regional laws in 2013,” said Cecep.
In the letter to DPRD chairman FerrialSofyan, PBHI requested for immediate announcement of attendance report as it will serve as parameter and information for voters in the next elections so that voters can be more objective in voting the next DPRD members for a better Jakarta.
Source: detik.com
by Parliamentary Center | Nov 23, 2016 | News, Clippings, National, Government
Berangus Pungli dengan Penguatan Sistem IT dan Partisipasi Publik melalui Keterbukaan Informasi
JAKARTA Setelah mencanangkan pemberantasan pungutan liar (pungli), Presiden Joko Widodo mengingatkan agar aksi tersebut tak berhenti hanya sebagai sebuah gerakan simbolik atau seremonial semata, namun harus betul-betul fokus dan konkret di lapangan.
Di mata Presiden, langkah reformasi hukum yang dicanangkan dengan gebrakan aksi pemberantasan pungli melalui tim Sapu Bersih Pungutan Liar (Saber Pungli), hasilnya bisa dilihat dengan makin banyaknya pembenahan, terutama di tempat pelayanan publik.
“Saya mendapatkan informasi bahwa pengaduan masyarakat sudah sangat banyak. Hasilnya juga mulai terlihat dengan ditangkapnya beberapa aparat, birokrasi, kemudian juga BUMN yang masih berani melakukan pungli. Dan ini akan terus kita gencarkan lagi,” tegasnya.
Menurut presiden, langkah pemerintah tidak hanya akan berhenti pada pemberantasan pungli saja, tapi jangkauan pemberantasan korupsi harus dimulai dari hulu sampai hilir, dari pencegahan sampai dengan penindakan hukum yang tegas.
Presiden juga meminta agar langkah-langkah deregulasi perbaikan mekanisme, penyederhanaan prosedur birokrasi, termasuk penyederhanaan izin SPD (Surat Perjalanan Dinas) diperbaiki, terutama dengan mengoptimalkan pemanfaatan teknologi informasi.
“Tapi pembangunan sistem yang berbasis IT juga bukan satu-satunya jawaban, harus diimbangi dengan bekerjanya pengawasan yang efektif, baik yang dilakukan oleh pengawas internal masing-masing kementerian dan lembaga, maupun dengan cara mengundang partisipasi publik melalui keterbukaan informasi,” tandasnya.
by Parliamentary Center | Oct 27, 2016 | National
Providing Elections Data for Voters Essential in Electing Quality Leaders
Jakarta (7/09) – What kind of information do the people need during the regional head elections (pilkada)? How to vote, where to vote and how to register as a voter. It is not hard to obtain those information as the General Elections Commission (KPU) has the tool to provide them, including the background of candidates. However, information regarding commitment and integrity is difficult to obtain. For example, what kind of criminal offense has candidate A committed? That kind of information is essential in electing leaders with integrity.
Transparency must find its benefits, said Erik Kurniawan, researcher at the Indonesian Parliamentary Center. In order to provide quality information, we need to filter what kind of information that will be given, to whom and what for.
For incumbent candidates, we can provide data regarding the candidates commitment to womens issues in the regional budget. We give the data to women so that they can decide whether the candidate deserves their votes.
Pandu, from Code for Bandung, shared his experiences where the procedure to obtain building permits was confusing which is a good opportunity for middlemen to make money. We draw together people from the agencies and the communities. It turned out the difficulty was in filling the form, said Pandu.
Code for Bandung encouraged the Bandung city government to open access to data. In the last two years, Code has collaborated with several communities to promote open data to the people. Information regarding how to fill the form could solve a problem, said Pandu.
KPU provides pilkada data, but most of the data are not enough to generate public interest, which must be improved to add the value to the data. Besides that, crosschecking the data published by KPU must also be done to increase the value of information. [AH]
Source: http://kebebasaninformasi.org/2015/09/07/mengolah-data-pilkada-lebih-bermakna/
by Parliamentary Center | Oct 27, 2016 | National
Aiming to Achieve Transparent Elections
On August 14, 2015, the General Elections Commission (KPU) held a meeting with the Innovative Civig Engagement (ICE) working group at KPU building.
ICE is an NGO working group for general elections information openness. It consists of Elva, Indonesian Parliamentary Center (IPC), the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), the Nusantara Media Development Association (PPMN) and Womens Solidarity (SP). The meeting was for ICE to propose to improve information services at KPU.
KPUs information openness innovation in 2014 was greatly praised. KPUs biggest challenges are to maintain that achievement and spread it to various parties as a lesson, said Titi Anggraeni, Executive Director of Perludem.
KPUs move to publish C1 document during the 2014 presidential elections also gained positive response from the international community at the interntational open data conference at Ottawa, Canada, on May 28-19, 2015.
This achievement must be followed by improvement of information services at KPU. Sulastio from IPC said that KPU needed to set up e-ppid in order to establish PPID structure in KPU.
IPC researcher Arbain said that the secretariat had understood public information as right of the people. Targets for the next step are establishment and improvement of PPID, drafting Public Information List (DIP) and data digitization SOP.
In the last two years, Arbain have been active in assisting KPU in improving public information openness. In early 2014, the elections network requested massive information at KPU which caused panics and concerns regarding UU KIP. At that time, I started encouraging KPU, said Arbain, who came to the technical and public participation division at KPU two to three times a week to propose activities and convince employees that they could carry on.
The efforts produced results after several workshops and training of PPID and several provincial KPU. There are now at least 14 PPID trainers at KPU, said Arbain.
KPU appreciated the public participation in contributing ideas to the KPU. This will surely become an encouragement for KPU in realizing KPUs goal of becoming the center of data and information regarding Indonesias elections for the world, said Ferv Kurnia Rizkiansyah, member of KPU.
Source: http://kebebasaninformasi.org/2015/08/27/membangun-mimpi-transparasi-pemilu/
