Jakarta linking civil servants’ pay with performance

A part of Jakarta officials’ pay will be linked to their performance against key indicators, Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama announced today.

The move is a step to ensure the civil service is more productive and delivering better services.

The government will introduce key performance indicators in two weeks against which civil servants will be measured.

Their performance allowance will be adjusted based on this. If they do not reach their targets, they will not get their allowance, he added.

The Governor added that the city’s spending of IDR 18 trillion on civil servants’ salaries is excessive.

Nearly half of this goes to teachers and nurses. The government has also temporarily stopped recruitment to reduce the number of civil servants.

In 2014 the city had around 72,000 officials, which Basuki wants to cut by 22,000.

The Governor last week also started using an app that ranks the performance of district heads.

The app is linked to data from the city’s complaints service, Qlue. If a district has a higher number of unanswered complaints, its head will be ranked lower.

Basuki has taken a tough stance on the performance of Jakarta’s civil service, in the past firing officials who have not performed well.