Lack of Transparency and Information Disclosure at the Ministry of Forestry

 
Ady TD Achmad, Christina Desy
 
When the House of Representatives passed Law No. 14 of 2008 on Disclosure of Public Information (“Law”), the aim was to realize a transparent government under which governmental institutions must provide information to the public about their activities, programs, and even budgeting.
 
Under these obligations, governmental institutions must be able to provide publicly available information at any time, regularly, or upon request. They must also appoint an officer who is responsible for Information Management and Documentation, know as a Pejabat Pengelola Informasi dan Dokumentasi (PPID), an “Information Officer”.
 
Most government institutions, including ministries, are trying to comply with their obligations under the Law. The Ministry of Forestry (“Ministry”), for instance, has tried to comply with their obligations by appointing a PPID and issuing a Ministerial Regulation No. 7 of 2011 that delineates open and exempted information.
 
Nevertheless, many commentators are of the view that the Ministry’s performance is slow and below what it should be as forestry information remains largely inaccessible to the public. This issue has been highlighted by Linda Rosalina, a researcher at Forest Watch Indonesia.
 
Mrs. Rosalina is deplored by the current situation because forestry information is critical to improve not only the Indonesian forestry sector, but also Indonesia as a whole, given that forests cover some 70% of Indonesia’s land area. To implement improvements, the government needs support and participation from the public which can only be realized if the public has proper access to accurate and complete information on forestry matters.
 
To date, Mrs. Rosalina has observed that public access to information is limited to administrative information from the Ministry which has limited utility. What the public really needs access to is the more important information that is directly related to the management and maintenance of forests and forest products including information on industrial plantation forests, forests concessions, as well as forest conditions, policies, and budgeting.
 
The importance of proper access to information is also asserted by Citra Hartati, Program Officer at the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL). Ms Hartati emphasizes that the public has a right to access public information. With access to information, the public will become knowledgeable about the Ministry’s programs, and also have the opportunity to monitor the Ministry’s policy implementation.
 
John Fresly, Deputy Chairman of the Central Information Commission (Komisi Informasi Pusat), explained that the Ministry usually holds such information without publishing it. Mr. Fresly say that the public has to be proactive in procuring information.
 
Mr. Fresly assures that the Law guarantees the public’s right to access the information from public institutions. In addition, the public is also entitled to file a claim with the Information Commission (Komisi Informasi) if their requests are being rejected by a public institution.
 
Regardless, however, governmental institutions still have residual authority to decide which information and documents that can be accessed by the public. Mr. Fresly clarrified that under such circumstances, the Information Commission will render a decision as to whether certain information is public or not.
 
(hot/kc)