Indonesia seeks to replace civil service officers with artificial intelligence
Following his election promises to solidly cut red tape and encourage more investment in Indonesia, the country’s President Joko Widodo said the government will replace a number of civil service positions with artificial intelligence (AI).
Widodo made the remarks on November 28 in front of big company leaders as he laid out his second-term agenda aimed at changing the structure of Southeast Asia’s largest economy by reducing its reliance on natural resources, noting that the idea of using AI and smart services to streamline government processes was increasingly gaining prominence across the world.
He said he instructed his ministers to reduce the current top four tiers of Indonesia’s government agencies to two by 2020 and implement AI-based public services as “our bureaucracy will be faster with AI”.
More than 70 overlapping laws and regulations
Although he did not provide further details, if passed in parliament, the rule will be one of the more than 70 overlapping laws and regulations which the Indonesian government is looking to amend in order to simplify permit, licensing and investment procedures and boost the country’s competitiveness.
There were more than 4.3 million civil servants in Indonesia in 2017 according to latest figures from Statistics Indonesia, with civil servants’ salaries and allowances accounting for 33.8 per cent of Indonesia’s budget in 2016.
It hasn’t been the first time that Widodo has tried to create a more efficient public workforce. In his first term in 2015, he even issued a moratorium on civil service recruitment to improve his administration’s effectiveness and curb wasteful spending, but his downsizing efforts have proved unpopular, at least among the government workforce.
Reassessing roles of 430,000 civil servants
As a start, Indonesia’s Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Tjahjo Kumolo earlier this month issued an order for government institutions to reassess roles for middle and lower job positions at state institutions with the aim of redirecting about 430,000 civil servants into jobs that would have a greater impact on public service delivery.
Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto said the government would push for online single submission and the single map policy as part of its initiative to use AI in government-related work.
“One of the ways we would use AI would be during the business registration process. For example, we would simplify building permits. Licensing would be based on a risk-based approach,” he added.
Following his election promises to solidly cut red tape and encourage more investment in Indonesia, the country's President Joko Widodo said the government will replace a number of civil service positions with artificial intelligence (AI). Widodo made the remarks on November 28 in front of big company leaders as he laid out his second-term agenda aimed at changing the structure of Southeast Asia’s largest economy by reducing its reliance on natural resources, noting that the idea of using AI and smart services to streamline government processes was increasingly gaining prominence across the world. He said he instructed his ministers to...
Following his election promises to solidly cut red tape and encourage more investment in Indonesia, the country’s President Joko Widodo said the government will replace a number of civil service positions with artificial intelligence (AI).
Widodo made the remarks on November 28 in front of big company leaders as he laid out his second-term agenda aimed at changing the structure of Southeast Asia’s largest economy by reducing its reliance on natural resources, noting that the idea of using AI and smart services to streamline government processes was increasingly gaining prominence across the world.
He said he instructed his ministers to reduce the current top four tiers of Indonesia’s government agencies to two by 2020 and implement AI-based public services as “our bureaucracy will be faster with AI”.
More than 70 overlapping laws and regulations
Although he did not provide further details, if passed in parliament, the rule will be one of the more than 70 overlapping laws and regulations which the Indonesian government is looking to amend in order to simplify permit, licensing and investment procedures and boost the country’s competitiveness.
There were more than 4.3 million civil servants in Indonesia in 2017 according to latest figures from Statistics Indonesia, with civil servants’ salaries and allowances accounting for 33.8 per cent of Indonesia’s budget in 2016.
It hasn’t been the first time that Widodo has tried to create a more efficient public workforce. In his first term in 2015, he even issued a moratorium on civil service recruitment to improve his administration’s effectiveness and curb wasteful spending, but his downsizing efforts have proved unpopular, at least among the government workforce.
Reassessing roles of 430,000 civil servants
As a start, Indonesia’s Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Tjahjo Kumolo earlier this month issued an order for government institutions to reassess roles for middle and lower job positions at state institutions with the aim of redirecting about 430,000 civil servants into jobs that would have a greater impact on public service delivery.
Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto said the government would push for online single submission and the single map policy as part of its initiative to use AI in government-related work.
“One of the ways we would use AI would be during the business registration process. For example, we would simplify building permits. Licensing would be based on a risk-based approach,” he added.
