TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The existence of a fake letter appointing the director-general of immigration shows that there is something seriously amiss at the heart of President Joko Widodo's administration. A presidential decision (Keppres) is a document that represents the policy of the president as head of state and head of government. The falsification of a Keppres is a serious offense. It gets even worse if it turns out that an insider was involved in this illegal act.
The fake decision letter was numbered 766P/XII/2014. It appointed Bambang Widodo as director-general of immigration at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry. Bambang is one of three candidates for the post as determined by the selection committee set up by Amir Syamsuddin, justice minister under the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration. He is ranked at number three. Together with those of the two candidates above him, last September his name was forwarded to the Final Assessment Team, a body led by the president to appoint echelon I officials.
Not wanting to take decisions in the final days of his government, Yudhoyono did not call a meeting of the Final Assessment Team, while President Widodo has yet to sign the appointment letter. The vacant position is currently filled by an acting official.
The fake letter was circulated among journalists and politicians at the House of Representatives (DPR). Based on the document, several politicians urged the government to immediately appoint Bambang as director-general. The cabinet secretaries from the Yudhoyono and Widodo administrations both denied they had issued the letter. It remains unclear who is responsible for issuing the document.
President Jokowi must act at once. He must not ignore this crime. The police must track down the perpetrators. Any officials involved who benefitted from the crime must be dealt with. The people behind this must be charged with forging a document. The investigation should start at the offices of the Cabinet Secretariat and the Justice Ministry, where the letter was first circulated.
The motive behind the production of this letter must be uncovered. It is possible that it was designed to pressure the government to appoint the person named in it. Another possibility is that it was intended to discredit him. And it is not impossible that it was produced to show the chaotic nature of government administration. Finally, we must not discount the possibility that the culprit was a person inside the government.
The Cabinet Secretariat must be put in order. There must be no more carelessness in the administration of the government. The issuing of Presidential Regulation No. 39/2015 on the Granting of Down Payment Facilities to State Officials for the Purchase of Private Vehicles must not be repeated. This 17-day-old regulation proves there are two levels of administrative errors: the president does not read documents carefully before he signs them, and his aides are also careless or intentionally neglectful.
The Cabinet Secretariat and the State Secretariat are still full of old bureaucrats who find it difficult to change their ways. But this is the challenge for the minister/state secretary and the cabinet secretary, neither of whom should hesitate to take action. Dismiss officials who refuse to change. If mistakes occur at the ministerial level, the president should be firm: fire them from the cabinet. (*)