JAKARTA: Indonesia president Prabowo Subianto has made his first Cabinet change, switching up a senior minister role.
On Wednesday (Feb 19), Prabowo announced that Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister, 69-year-old academic Satryo Soemantri Brodjonegoro, would be replaced by Brian Yuliarto, another academic serving as a deputy rector at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) in West Java.
Brian was inaugurated at the State Palace in Jakarta on Wednesday afternoon, local media reported.
He said that he was offered the position by Prabowo himself on Wednesday morning before taking the oath of office in the afternoon.
“I received the call while I was in Bandung at around 9am,” Brian said at the inauguration ceremony at the State Palace.
“I was instructed to consolidate the ministry and ensure alignment with the president’s programmes,” he added, as quoted by the Jakarta Globe.
On Wednesday afternoon, Brian declined to name his priorities, saying only that he would be focusing on “strategic programmes in Prabowo’s Asta Cita programme, such as producing high-quality manpower”, according to the Jakarta Post.
The Asta Cita “eight visions” programme is Prabowo’s strategy to address Indonesia’s socio-economic challenges.
Shortly after Brian was inaugurated as his successor, Satryo claimed that he had submitted his resignation letter to the president earlier on Wednesday.
“I just returned from the State Secretariat after submitting my resignation letter. I have worked hard over the past four months but perhaps I did not meet the government’s expectations so I decided to resign rather than be dismissed,” the former minister told the media in Jakarta on Wednesday, as quoted by the Jakarta Globe.
“I believe I have done my best and worked sincerely. If that wasn’t enough then I choose to resign,” he said, adding that he already wrote his resignation letter around Tuesday midnight and personally delivered it to the State Secretariat the following day to be forwarded to the president.
Satryo has been under pressure to step down since last month following allegations that he had abruptly dismissed a civil servant in the higher education ministry which triggered a protest by hundreds of the ministry’s employees on Jan 20 in Central Jakarta.
In January, a key staff member who had worked for 24 years at the ministry, Neni Herlina, claimed that she was suddenly removed from her job, allegedly at the instruction of Satryo’s wife.
The termination however has since been reversed following the protest after Satryo himself held a “reconciliatory” meeting with the civil servants who staged the protest.
Head of Directorate General of Higher Education Employees Association Suwitno told Tempo that Neni was rotated and not fired.
Satryo had also earlier said that the widespread reshuffling of his ministry was necessary to improve efficiency and work synergy, adding that it was “in line with the president’s call to be more efficient with the budget”.
The former minister also faced accusations of assaulting his staff on multiple occasions, although he has denied it.
In a voice recording that had circulated online, also in January, a voice similar to Satryo’s could be heard allegedly scolding and slapping one of his ministry’s vendors because of some water issues at his house.
“That is not my voice,” he said in January, as quoted by local news platform Tempo.
Separately, Satryo was also recently criticised for postponing the enactment of a regulation mandating incentive pay for lecturers, according to Jakarta Post. The former minister announced in December last year that his ministry would evaluate the regulation signed by his predecessor Nadiem Makarim.
He said this is so that his ministry could review the regulation as advised by several parties in the higher education sector.
The evaluation however had potentially postponed the disbursement of lecturers’ allowances, according to The Jakarta Post.
In addition to Brian, Prabowo also inaugurated Muhammad Yusuf Ateh and Agustina Arumsari as the new head and deputy head of the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency, Amelia Adininggar Widyasanti and Sonny Harry Budiutomo Harmadi as the head and deputy head of Statistics Indonesia.
Nugroho Sulistyo Budi was appointed as the new head of the National Cyber and Encryption Agency.
On Jan 23, the president ordered a 256 trillion rupiah (US$15.67 billion) budget cut for ministries and state agencies, along with a 50 trillion rupiah reduction in central government transfers to regional administrations.
His directive in January did not state the rationale for the budget cuts. But news outlets reported that the savings would be channelled to his administration’s flagship free nutritious meals initiative as well as Danantara, Indonesia’s new sovereign wealth fund to be launched on Feb 24.
CNA reported earlier that some civil servants have questioned Prabowo’s budget efficiency drive, as the belt-tightening measures have dented staff morale with several priority programmes defunded.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesia-first-cabinet-reshuffle-satryo-higher-education-minister-4949001
