The plan to increase the number of ministries in the government structure has often been debated among the Indonesian society from a long time ago. Including during the current transitional period of government.
This discourse surfaced after Prabowo, who won the 2024 Presidential Election, recently voiced it to the public.
He did not hold back, saying he had plans to form 41 ministries (source: kompas.com).
This increase can be considered relatively significant because currently there are already 34 ministries in the Indonesian government.
Looking back, we understand that on one side, their existence is needed to handle various fields and interests.
However, on the other hand, having too many ministries also has the potential to cause new problems for this country.
Therefore, in this article I would like to invite you to consider the advantages and disadvantages of having more ministries in our future government, as well as the reasons why we should not get trapped in this debate endlessly until we forget the root problems facing this nation.
The Number of Ministries in History
The number of ministries in Indonesia has continued to change from one government to another since this nation proclaimed its independence.
At the beginning of independence in 1945, Indonesia only had 12 ministries under the Presidential Cabinet led by President Sukarno.
During the New Order era under the leadership of President Suharto, the number of ministries continued to increase over time.
In 1973, there were 26 ministries. This number continued to increase until it peaked with 35 ministries in 1998.
Entering the Reformation era, the number of ministries decreased. In the 1999-2004 National Unity Cabinet under President Abdurrahman Wahid, the number of ministries was reduced to 22. Then during President Megawati’s era (2001-2004), the number of ministries was reduced again to 21.
During President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s (SBY) leadership from 2004-2009, the number of ministries was set at 35. However, during his second term (2009-2014), the number was reduced to 34 ministries.
During President Joko Widodo’s era, the number of ministries was reduced again. In his first term (2014-2019) there were 34 ministries, then in his second term (2019-2024) it was reduced to 33 ministries.
By examining the fluctuations in the number of ministries in Indonesian history, we can conclude that the number of ministries in Indonesia once reached a peak of 35 during the New Order era in 1998.
However, it then experienced a downward trend during the Reformation era with around 20 to 30 ministries under various government cabinets.
This adjustment in the number was carried out with the main goal of increasing the efficiency of the government bureaucracy.
4 Advantages of Having More Ministries
The main advantage of having many ministries is more in-depth specialization in each field.
This must be acknowledged because later each ministry can focus on one particular field so that policy development and programs in that field can be carried out more effectively.
For example, the Ministry of Transportation deals with the development of transportation infrastructure, while the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology deals with the protection of personal data.
Furthermore, the workload and responsibilities can be distributed more evenly across the various ministries.
This can increase work efficiency and speed up decision-making because it is not centralized in just one ministry.
With a proportional division of tasks, it is hoped that no ministry will have an excess or shortage of workload.
Finally, having many ministries allows various interests and sectors in society to be better represented at the government level.
This is important for a large and diverse country like Indonesia so that no interests are neglected.
More Ministries, More Wasteful Spending
Now let’s try to explore the potential problems from increasing the number of ministries.
With more ministries, the country also has the potential to experience more problems.
First, operational costs will be higher because the state has to provide a budget for employee salaries, office facilities, and operational needs in each ministry.
Consequently, state spending will also be higher.
Second, having more ministries will make coordination between ministries more difficult.
Greater efforts are needed to ensure that there is no overlap or even conflict of interest in the implementation of policies and programs of each ministry.
Third, policy fragmentation can occur because each ministry has different priorities and interests.
As a result, the government’s overall policies could become disjointed and fragmented because they are formulated based on the interests of each ministry.
Finally, with more ministries, the bureaucratic lines will also become more complicated and convoluted for the public and foreigners.
You can imagine how layered the bureaucracy will be for the public and investors if there are more ministries whose affairs are similar to each other and overlap.
This would certainly go against the spirit of the new government, which wants to welcome more foreign investors to Indonesia.
Who would want to invest in a country with a bureaucracy that makes your head spin and the processing costs are many times higher than other countries?
Taking a lesson from the case of Apple investing heavily in Vietnam, we know that Indonesia lost miserably because our investment and trade policies are still less investor-friendly compared to Vietnam.
The Vietnamese government has implemented policies that support foreign investment, such as tax cuts and streamlining permits. This has attracted the interest of Apple and other companies to invest in Vietnam (source: VnExpress).
In other words, having more ministries has the potential to cause waste, inefficient processes, and slow decision-making because there are too many chains that must be passed through.
Quantity Is Not the Core Problem
For me personally, the number of ministries is not the essence of the actual problem. The core problem is our ability to implement good governance.
The concept of good governance refers to the practice of solid and accountable development management in accordance with the principles of democracy and efficient markets, avoidance of misallocation of investment funds, and prevention of corruption, both politically and administratively.
I underline “prevention of corruption, both politically and administratively” in the explanation above because this is the big problem our nation is facing right now.
So let’s not get trapped in the debate over the number of ministries and focus on the core problem that we have not yet been able to solve until this moment: corruption, collusion and nepotism.
Once that is resolved, whether the number of ministries is small or large, it seems reasonable either way. (*/)
