POLITICS

The Governor election has just concluded with the incumbent governor as the majority winner with over 60% of the total votes on his side. Nonetheless, the political situation is slightly interrupted with corruption issues of various magnitudes that were implicated on a number of Provincial Department Heads. Investigations that were being carried out by the officials from the Central Presecution Agency were put on hold, to be continued after the formal sworning & confirmation of the elected governor.

ECONOMY

Since early 2005, Maluku's development has been relying heavily on Special Funding from the Central Government such as the famous INPRES 6/2003 (Presidential Decree no.6, 2003) that allocated a large chunk amount of money (approximately US$ 470 million) for the recovery of Maluku post conflict, separate from the regular budgets (Central & Regional Budgets) as well as other funding from international aid as well as special purposes funds (e.g. refugees fund etc).

Unfortunately, no matter how much money poured in to Maluku, it just seems never sufficient to boost Maluku's economy.  Lack of integrated coordination & management contributed significantly to the failure to develop Maluku's economy. Corruption at almost all level also played a vital role to Maluku's economy degradation. There's hardly any evidence that shows the local government seriousness in eradicating corruption in Maluku.

There has been NO INVESTMENT coming into Maluku in 2007. Moreover, previous investments that came into Maluku were only lasted less than one fiscal year (in average). These are mainly due to Maluku's inability to identify the gaps & opportunities that may be improved & then leveraged to attract sustainable investments. The Provincial Investment Coordinating Board has not been able to develop its capacity to come up with viable programs that may attract potential investors. We're yet to see some major improvements within this organization.

Another critical issue is on the strategic role of the Provincial Planning & Development Board, which have been trimmed down in the past for some unknown reasons. The Provincial Government of Maluku (as well as the Central Government of Indonesia) should realize the strategic importance of the Planning & Development Board in playing the central role of Planning & Development of all sectors, including the program management aspects. We're yet to see some improvements, particularly in the empowerment of the Planning & Development Board as well as the provision of larger authority to plan, develop and govern programs across the board.

With regards to Investment, The Advance Maluku Team strongly believes that for any incoming investment to be sustainable, the communities economies have to be developed first. Once they're well developed, any investments coming in will be well supported by the communities where the investment(s) is targeted at through various economic/ business participations/ collaborations/ co-operations. These will in turn create better efficiency level for the investors. To date, there has been no evidence that shows the benefits of investment towards local/ community-level sustainable economy development and growth.

Any comments, critics, points for improvements may be submitted to: improve@advance-maluku.com