Provincial governors urges revision of new autonomy law

Provincial governors called on the central government to revise the new autonomy law following growing resistance against governor ruling by district regents, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Governor Harun Al Rasyid was quoted by Tempo Interaktif as saying.

Harun said that the provincial governors proposed for the revision during a meeting in NTB at weekend.

He said that there had been several incidents where the regents opposed the governor ruling including in the appointment of senior government officials in the region.

He added that the regents tended to discriminate officials originating from the local area.

Another example was the opposition of the Kotabaru regent in South Kalimantan over the instruction of the provincial governor to curb illegal mining activity in the Kotabaru area.

Harun said that the new autonomy law must be revised or it could trigger disintegration.

The new autonomy law, which gives greater administrative power to both provincial and district administration in managing their social and economic affairs, was launched in early this year in a bid to help avoid the country's disintegration amid growing resentment in resource-rich provinces over the past centralistic government.(*)