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THE IMPROVEMENT OF PLANNING BUDGETING MECHANISM FOR NATIONAL AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA

 Since 1982, regional development annual planning and monitoring mechanism has been regulated by the only regulation form the Ministry of Home Affairs which called the Guidance for Regional Development Planning and Monitoring established by the Regulation of the Ministry of Home Affairs 9/1982. The implementation of the mechanism in the last five years shows the needs to improve and justify the regulation in order to meet the actual conditions and complexity of the related development activities in regional as well as local level. Actually, there are problems and constraints in implementing the mechanisme properly, which related not only with the lack of decentralization concern from the sectoral-central agencies but also the the less-effectiveness of the implementation of coordinated planning forums at all level of authority from village to national level.

 In fact, the existing planning and monitoring mechanism regulated by the 1982’s regulation is designed to meet the top-down and the bottom-up aspirations, but the implementation still shows relatively less-effective. According to the experience in implementing the mechanism for the last 14 years, it shows that it can not effectively meets and synchronizing the aspiration for the sectoral point-of-view (top down) and the bottom up aspiration from the local and regional point-of-view. Generally, the results of the existing mechanism show that the top-down is stronger than the bottom-up. It means that the mechanism can not representing the bottom-up aspiration properly and still giving more results to the bottom-up sectoral aspirations.

Paralel to the above mechanism, it is recognized that there are sectoral development planning mechanisms implemented partially by each ministry and its vertical line at the local and regional level. It is believed that the sectoral planning mechanism is much more powerful than the regional planning mechanism.

One among the reason of the existing less-effectiveness mechanism is the lack of commitment and lack of sense-of-belonging from the related sectoral agencies in the national level to follow the mechanism, and presumably they still considering the regulation as the mechanism only for the Minsitry of Home Affairs and its local governments. In order to improve the effectiveness of the mechanism, especially for the related-sectoral ministries at national level, it is recognized that for the last five years it has been efforts to draft a Presidential Regulation for the regional development planning and monitoring mechanism which aimed to meet the top-down and its bottom-up conterpart. By considering that the Presidential Regulation is designed to be a general regulation, it is understandable to detailing the regulation into the more technical and operational one. It is related to the role of Bappenas as the agency with development planning and coordination responsibility at the national level.

In order to strenhthening the role of Bappenas, there are coordination needs internally within Bappenas and externally between Bappenas and other related sectoral agencies and the local government. It is considered that the result of the development planning mechanism is not only the national-sectoral development budget allocation but the regional and local development budget as well.

External coordination in the preparation of the new mechanism should be done between Bappenas and Ministry of Home Affairs, by considering the role of the ministry in assisting and administering the development and government administration of the local governments. It is understandable because the existing mechanism is regulated by the regulation of the Ministry of Home Affairs, and its implementation guidances are established by the same ministry.

Moreover, by considering that development effort in the 6th five-year development plan (Repelita VI) and the 2nd long-term developmetn plan (PJP II) is aimed at the development of the private sector participation in development, the improvement of the existing mechanism is very urgent to consider the private investment in development as complement to the public development investment. The new mechanism should integrating and synchronizing both source of local development investment funds.

In fact, the main source of fund for the local development budget is still dominated by development assistance and subsidy from central government. Therefore, it needs to mobilizing the funding source from the extensively local potentials for local revenue and other central-related funds such as the regional development account (RDA) mechanism or the two-step-loan mechanism channeled by subsidiary loan agreement (SLA).

According to the experience implementing the existing planning mechanism, it is significantly believed that the forums are presumably aimed at the conventionally national and local budget planning process, and not considering the other potential source of development budget such as the RDA and the participation of the private sector investment in development.

Above mentioned background can be summarized that it is urgently needed to have the new and more effective development planning mechanism, to be the main guidance for any related-agency of central and local government as well.

The main goal of the research is to establish the main guidance of the development planning mechanism and process, at national, regional, and local level which aimed to draft the standard operational procedure (SOP) of the implementation of the mechanism. The SOP will consists of the coordination, institutional setting, planning format/document, and the expected output of the process and mechanism.

The objectives of this research are as follows:

1. As guidance for the local government in the implementation of the planning forums at the regional and local level. The guidance should sustainably be followed within the context of the autonomous era (decentralization orientation).
2. As guidance for any sectoral-related agency at national level and its vertical agencies at regional and local level in implementing the sectoral-development planning mechanism.
3. As guidance for the implementation of the national development planning coordination forum, related to the local, regional and national level.
4. The more coordinated development planning forums between the sectoral and the regional aspiration, to meet the synchronization of the sectoral and regional development programs which aimed at the more effective and efficient regional and local development.
5. To standarize the development planning formats and documents for any planning forums at national, regional and local level.
6. To be a policy input and will be addressed as the strategy in integrating the public and private investment for regional and local development.

 The research is aimed at the following results:

 The more effective regional development planning mechanism.

1. The more efficient regional development budget planning and allocation mechanism and procedure.
2. The integration and synchronization of the existing separately-implemented planning forums such as the sectoral development planning forums and the private investment planning and coordination, to be integtaed with the proposed integrated mechanism.
3. The integration and consolidation of the existing sectoral-partially planning formats, to be an integrated and consolidated planning formats. The proposed format should be considered as a computerized processable format.
4. Identification of responsibility and role of related coordinating and planning agencies at national, regional and local level in managing and coordinating the planning process form the very bottom to the national level.

 The proposed research consists of research components which aimed to be an integrated components as follows:

 To draft the Standard Operational Procedure (SOP) for the implementation of the development planning process and mechanism from the village level to the national level.

1. To create an integrated and consolidated develeopment planning formats for any development planning forums at each level of administration.
2. To establish the proposed pattern of the mechanism in the autonomous region, which can be focussed at the autonomous district/kabupaten regions.
3. To propose the allocation mechanism of development budget at any level of administration, by considering the existing procedures such as sectoral, regional, and subsidy and assistance.