Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture: Anatomy of

UNCLAS JAKARTA 000873 SIPDIS SENSITIVE USDA FOR OA/ROBERTS/SIMMONS, APHIS/DEHAVEN, DLP/WETZEL, ICD/PETRIE MANILA FOR APHIS/CARDENAS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAGR ETRD PGOV ID SUBJECT: Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture: Anatomy of Failure ¶1. (SBU) Summary. The GOI Ministry of Agriculture under the Leadership of Dr. Ir. Anton Apriyanto, formerly a researcher and lecturer on food ingredient technology, has made little headway in the year plus that he has been in place. From agricultural trade policy to Avian Influenza (AI),the operations of government owned plantations to implementation of biosafety and food safety protocols, the Ministry is drifting. The lack of vision, inability to implement rudimentary changes to positively affect producer income, and apparent lack of action to keep the Indonesian public apprized of the basic animal health issues surrounding AI all point to an under performing Ministry. End Summary. Adrift in a Sea of Politics ___________________________ ¶2. (SBU) Minister Apriyanto has never held elective office, nor has he served in any Ministry position before. He was appointed to his current position by President Yudhoyono in October 2004. Dr. Apriyanto is a member of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS),Indonesia's fastest-growing, most staunchly Islamist, urban-based party which supports the current administration. Affable in private meetings, he nevertheless has exhibited a certain ruthlessness in his dealings with Ministry staff. Qualified senior staff have been replaced, frequently with whispers of conflict with the Minister's view as to the proper place of women in his Ministry, and/or his desire to place PKS sympathizers in lead positions. Most Director Generals (DGs) in the Ministry have been replaced, as well as many Director-level officials. Although a number of women holding senior positions have been removed, not one woman has subsequently been appointed to senior levels (DGs or Directors). Many appointees are new to senior management positions, and many are from the Agricultural Institute of Bogor (IPB),a leading Indonesian agricultural university and research center, and the Minister's former employer. ¶3. (SBU) A concentration on political correctness at the expense of management and technical competence has negatively affected the Ministry's day-to-day management. The ability of the Ministry to respond to breaking issues has been compromised, with the most obvious case being its actions with regard to AI. For example, the Ministry is now detailed to provide daily AI updates to the President, with weekly and monthly summaries. When queried as to how often the Ministry makes public announcements regarding AI and animal health countermeasures, the response was "when someone dies". This is clearly an indication of a Ministry that is not focused on a matter firmly within their mandate. ¶4. (SBU) In addition, long-term planning appears to have slipped a notch or two. The Ministry is apparently not as adept as formerly with respect to maintaining their bureaucratic portfolio. A case in point is biosafety. The GOI formerly assigned the management of this to the Ministry of Agriculture. In May 2005 via Presidential Decree, the responsibility was shifted to the Ministry of Environment. Since that time, no GOI actions with respect to implementing the Cartagena Protocol, biosafety regulation or food safety regulation have occurred. The "biosafety committee" (representatives from Ministries of Agriculture, Environment, Health, the Food and Drug Agency) required to vet such regulations has not even been named, much less held a meeting in over six months. ¶5. (SBU) The Agriculture Minister also appears to hold the analysis of the Ministry's staff in low regard. He has appointed ad hoc committees of advisors, so-called Expert's Commissions, to provide advice, e.g., market access for beef from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)-affected countries. These committees meet only about three or four times per year, and are made up mostly of academics known to the Minister from his days as one of them. The committees have developed the habit of countering the analysis of Ministry staff, which has had two direct results. One, Ministry technical staff have become demoralized, and two, the transparency of the Ministry's decision-making process has declined. The net effect has been to bring most decision making to the Minister himself, and his personal staff, many of whom are also from IPB. Corruption of a Different Stripe? _________________________________ ¶6. (SBU) Allegations of corruption within the Ministry of Agriculture are nothing new. They run the gamut from special payments to acquire import permits, stories that recent rice imports were to the benefit of the Vice President's party to bribery by multinational firms to secure favorable regulatory change (for which Monsanto paid a $1.5 million fine in the U.S. in January 2005). Recent allegations indicate that the Ministry's senior officials may now be attempting to funnel import rights to PKS front companies. Although difficult to prove, this particular rumor has come from both the private sector and (non-PKS) Agriculture Ministry officials. ¶7. (SBU) At the end of 2004 and into early 2005, the Minister initially held up for half a year the sale of Goodyear's North Sumatra rubber plantation to Bridgestone on the grounds that the property should first be offered to a local company. The Minister's stance ran counter to Indonesia's foreign investment rules and rumors circulated that Bakrie Plantations, affiliated with then Coordinating Minister for the Economy Aburizal Bakrie, was interested in purchasing the plantation. Bakrie Plantations, however, never approached Goodyear on purchasing the land. Eventually, in a meeting with Goodyear and Bridgestone representatives, the Minister agreed to the sale after receiving assurances from Goodyear that Bakrie Plantations had not made an offer to buy the land. ¶8. (SBU) Comment: The apparent decline in the efficacy of the Ministry of Agriculture has become a problem in terms of making proper representations of U.S. trade policy issues. The case of market access for U.S. beef and products is illustrative, but not isolated. Additional issues include collaboration on biotechnology, e.g., how to select senior policy makers to attend U.S.-funded events when the GOI has yet to name the principals; cooperation in the animal health sector to combat AI. The Ministry is tucked away in South Jakarta, in the direction of Bogor. Its physical distance from town seems a metaphor for its increasing distance from the real problems that it is expected to address. Interestingly, these complaints are heard from other Missions, UN organizations, the press, and local businessmen and women. It appears unlikely that complaints from diplomats, multinational donors, (mostly) ethnic Chinese businesspeople or the fourth estate 1will bring about significant change. Keeping a non-performer in the agriculture portfolio is a costly decision for the GOI. Agricultural policy directly affects many millions of Indonesians who still rely on agriculture for their livelihood. In addition, the society at large suffers from ineffective implementation and management of agricultural policies that have the potential to cause serious general problems. But given the importance of the Minister's party to President SBY's political support, and that one PKS Coordinating Minister was recently dropped from the cabinet, it is unlikely that Minister Anton will be replaced any time soon. Pascoe