A Tale of Two Reforms: The Dynamics of Public Procurement in Jakarta

Abstraksi

To deal with corruptions and public procurement delays, the Jakarta provincial government implemented several policy innovations during Joko Widodo (Jokowi)’s and Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok)’s administrations. First, Governor Jokowi initiated the reform by establishing the integrated procurement unit and introducing electronic procurement. Despite improved accountability and transparency, these reforms could not solve the procurement delays as the exhaustive accountability procedures slowed down the tender processes. To enhance the initial reforms, Governor Ahok then implemented the second wave of procurement reform in 2015. He introduced the consolidated tendering processes, that bundle similar and scattered projects into fewer and even single big project. This reform turned out to be successful in accelerating the public procurement processes and the budget absorption. Replicating this Jakarta's experience in reforming public procurement in other government agencies may require several factors. First, political leaders should be able to mobilize strong support from the public as well as other government institutions. Throughout the history of the Indonesian political economy, public procurement has been the source of patronage in politics and economics. Any reform will face the resistance not only from the government contractors but also bureaucracy and politicians. Second, political leaders should always be ready to learn and tweak the reforms, mainly to deal with the setback of the initial reforms. Third, political leaders should reform public procurement simultaneously with other reform policies, as the procurement issues are usually multi-dimensional and require comprehensive solutions.