It has been 6.5 years since the Law on Public Information Disclosure was passed, precisely on April 30, 2008. Law Number 14 of 2008 is expected to be a tool to control the implementation of the state and public bodies so that the use and management of the budget is clean, transparent and accountable. With the existence of information disclosure, it will be able to increase public trust in the government and public institutions/bodies. Because this Law provides the widest possible transparency to the public to access information regarding government policies, public bodies and in the implementation of government. Although in the Law it still provides protection for information that cannot be published on the grounds that it endangers the interests of the state and personal rights. The government and public bodies should not need to be afraid of the existence of public information disclosure, because if everything is carried out correctly and in accordance with procedures and regulations, there will definitely be no problems.
Over time, changes have slowly begun to be seen by state administrators and public bodies in responding to the Law on KIP. Access to public documents such as regional policies, regional development plans such as RPJMD and APBD has begun to be easier. Although there are still some public policies that are difficult to access, such as DPA SKPD. However, in general, non-governmental institutions and community organizations that will access public documents have become easier, of course by following the specified procedures. In this case, what needs to be built is trust between information providers and the public who need information. By building trust between both parties, of course public information will be easier to access because the information or documents obtained will not be misused.
With the openness of public information, of course it is responded well by the public, where information about development policies and budgeting as well as other public information will be more easily accessed. Some of the benefits or positive impacts of the openness of public information are:
- As a learning for the community about government implementation policies. By knowing government policies, in addition to the community becoming smarter, the community will also follow what is already in the government policy as long as the policy is in favor of the community. For example, by knowing the policy on the mechanism and system of development planning and budgeting, the community can learn how to be involved in the stages of development planning.
- Fulfillment of community needs, especially those that are basic community rights, why is that? Because with the openness of public information, the community will be involved in the development planning and budgeting process, so that the potential for the community to propose their needs in development planning will be greater. If in the previous development planning there were still many community needs that were priorities that had not been accommodated, then they could be proposed through existing mechanisms.
- Transparency of information will also reduce cases of abuse of authority and practices of corruption, collusion, nepotism and extortion that still often occur in the implementation of public services. With the transparency of information about public services, the public will know if there is abuse of authority for personal interests, so that in addition to better public services, the practices of extortion can be further suppressed. Likewise, in filling government apparatus and other public institutions, it will reduce practices of collusion and nepotism and other practices that will then ignore the quality factor of human resources needed.
- With the openness of information on development planning and budget, there will be effectiveness and efficiency of the government budget. The public can monitor the implementation of government including in the implementation of development that uses public budget. This community-based monitoring can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the development budget. If the implementation of development is not in accordance with the planning and its benefits cannot be felt by the community, then the community will criticize the implementation of development that is not good to the government.
The benefits of the emergence of this Law on the Openness of Public Information certainly cannot just happen. After the implementation of public services in this right, state administrators and public bodies open access to public information, the public can seize this opportunity. However, because so far the public has never been able to get the information they should be able to get, so there needs to be efforts to raise awareness and empower the public in responding to the openness of public information. In addition, state administrators and public bodies also prepare space to accommodate complaints from the public, so that there will continue to be improvements.
In this case, the IDEA Association, which works for advocacy of development planning and budgeting policies, carries out various activities to encourage better governance of development planning and budgeting. From the community side, capacity building and empowerment are carried out through various training and mentoring. Starting from knowledge about how the development planning and budgeting process is so that the community can be involved in the development planning process in accordance with existing policies. Then, in order to find out how the implementation of development and public services is carried out in accordance with existing policies, the community conducts monitoring called a social audit. The results of the social audit are then submitted to policy makers, namely the executive and legislative branches in their respective regions.
Another thing that is done is to encourage openness of information on the use of village budget and income (APB Desa) which since 2015 the village government has managed much more funds than before. One form of this openness of information is to encourage the village government to post information on village fund management in strategic places, and there are still several other activities such as open data and APBD analysis. With this openness of public information, it is hoped that it will bring about better changes.
By: Sunarja (Director of IDEA Yogyakarta Association)
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