Two Years in Government: The State Must Serve Its People

By Teguh Anantawikrama
Vice Chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(KADIN Indonesia)

UKMDANBURSA.COM  – The success of bureaucratic reform is ultimately measured by a citizen’s simplest encounters with the state. How long must someone wait? How often must the same documents be submitted? How much does it cost to access a public service?

For businesses, further questions arise: how predictable is licensing, how clear are the requirements, and how reliably do government services support investment decisions? The second anniversary of President Prabowo Subianto’s administration offers an opportunity to assess progress through these practical questions.

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Simpler, More Predictable Public Services
The achievements reported by the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform provide a picture of the direction of change. According to the ministry’s two-year performance account, 83 new Public Service Malls have opened under the current administration, bringing their presence to 313 local governments, alongside 211 digital Public Service Malls. Under Minister Rini Widyantini’s leadership, the effort to bring services closer to citizens has become increasingly tangible. Bringing services together in one location can reduce travel, queues, and the costs people bear when dealing with government.

The next measure of success, however, lies in integrating the processes behind those service counters. Services housed in one building must evolve into genuinely connected services, with consistent requirements, lawful reuse of existing data, and decisions that are no longer delayed by coordination between agencies. Citizens approach government with real-life needs, without necessarily knowing how responsibilities are divided across institutions. Connecting those responsibilities is the state’s task.

One of the clearest examples of this transformation is the digitalisation of social protection. The ministry reports that a registration process previously involving nine steps, taking up to 200 days, and costing approximately Rp150,000 can now be completed within one minute to six hours. Implementation reportedly expanded from 43 districts and cities in August to 258 in October 2026, with nine million households registered.

These figures demonstrate the potential of simpler service delivery. Their scope nevertheless matters: faster registration delivers its full value only when followed by accurate verification, eligibility decisions, and timely assistance.

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This is where digital transformation must retain its depth. Citizens who successfully register should be able to track their applications, correct inaccurate information, and appeal decisions when their entitlements remain unmet. Service quality depends on that entire journey. A system that is fast at the point of entry but difficult to navigate when problems arise still places a burden on citizens, particularly vulnerable households with limited resources to pursue their claims.

The principles of Digital by Design and Digital by Justice are therefore relevant because they connect efficiency with fairness. Services should be designed digitally from the outset while protecting access for people who lack devices, connectivity, or digital skills. An omnichannel approach—combining portals, assisted services, outreach, and physical counters—must deliver comparable standards across every channel. An elderly resident in a remote village should enjoy the same certainty as someone accessing services online in a major city.

From a business perspective, these improvements have direct economic significance. Time spent navigating paperwork is a cost. Unclear procedures increase investment uncertainty. Repeated documentation requirements consume energy that small businesses could otherwise devote to improving production and reaching new markets.

Bureaucratic reform is therefore part of national productivity policy. Simpler, more predictable public services strengthen the confidence to start businesses, invest, and create jobs.

The government’s thematic approach to bureaucratic reform, focused on poverty, investment, downstream industrial development, food security, health, and education, deserves further strengthening. The ministry reports its implementation across 418 government institutions.

It also reports an average poverty rate of 6.01 per cent in participating regions in 2025, compared with a national rate of 8.25 per cent. This comparison provides useful material for evaluation, but it does not establish that bureaucratic reform alone caused the difference.

Assessment must examine changes over time, regional starting conditions, and the contribution of other policies. Such scrutiny helps identify practices that genuinely work and supports their expansion on the strength of evidence.

The next phase requires strong leadership to connect administrative processes across ministries and local governments. The Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform has a strategic role in coordinating integrated services and improving governance. That role must translate into clear responsibilities, the resolution of institutional bottlenecks, and shared measures of success.

A single citizen’s need should have a complete path to resolution, even when several agencies are involved. Data exchange must likewise rest on a sound legal basis, interoperability standards, access controls, security, and auditable accountability.

Service Capacity That Meets Public Needs
The quality of public servants will determine whether these arrangements work in everyday life. The size of the civil service must translate into service capacity that matches public needs.

Digital competence, integrity, problem-solving ability, and empathy should become meaningful elements of professional development and performance assessment. The reported rise in follow-up on complaints through the LAPOR! platform to 95 per cent should also be accompanied by measures of substantive resolution: whether the citizen’s problem was actually solved, how long resolution took, and whether the same complaint recurs.

KADIN and the business community can contribute through measurable feedback on service barriers, testing the experience of service users, and helping smaller enterprises access government services. Technology partnerships should prioritise interoperability, security, costs over the full life of a system, and the government’s ability to sustain service delivery. Their value should be judged by the public problems they help resolve.

Two years in office provide a foundation for accelerating this transformation. Institutional achievements and digitalisation must continue to translate into outcomes citizens can feel: time returned to their families, money saved, assistance delivered accurately, and businesses able to grow with greater certainty. When these experiences become part of everyday life, bureaucratic reform fulfils its most important purpose—a state that is present, effective, and fair in serving its people. ***