Photo: Ahok’s Instagram account
Being a Jakarta civil servant was once perceived as a cushy position. The pay might not have been great, but the benefits were good, it was hard to get fired and there were always “other ways” to make money from the job.
That has all changed since Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s reign of righteous terror began when he took over the capital’s top executive position late last year. He introduced new performance based measures by which civil servants were to be graded, including basics such as attendance and how often they actually did their duties.
Some civil servants have flourished under the new system (he has given substantial raises and bonuses to those who perform well), but many more have learned that Ahok does not mess around. Yesterday, he fired 30 civil servants in his latest bit of housecleaning, bringing the total number for this year up to 120.
Ahok has also demoted a staggering 2,500 civil servants in 2015. The reasons for the demotions and dismissals are numerous, including chronic absenteeism, incompetence and corruption. Most got fired due to corruption.
“If you do little to help Jakarta’s problems, I will fire you,” Ahok said on Tuesday as quoted by Tempo.
The governor said that corruption was taking place throughout the government, from teachers and clerks to department heads. He also admitted it was extremely difficult to get civil servants to report the corrupt practices of their supervisors or colleagues.
But Ahok said the tide is turning. The dismissal of so many corrupt civil servants has made the government cleaner and made the city’s employees more likely to report corruption.
“It turns out that the most effective thing to do is to simply fire the bad and replace them with the good,” he said.
