Epilog for Jose Mourinho

It was unbelievable news that Mourinho and Chelsea was divorce. I am not a fan of Chelsea (sorry, I am a traditional supporter of Manchester United), but I am a big follower of Mourinho. Yes, in my opinion Mourinho is one of the most inspiring person in football.

In this season, I can't watch him in the glorious stage of Premier League (I also miss all games because I couldn't pay Astro) , but I hope there will be another team and league as stage for the special one.

Last comment, please take a look at the picture, and then please compare with the picture in the right side of this blog. Have you got it? I think my style is as cute and cool as Mourinho style. Yes, because his over coat follows mine. Gotcha!!!

note: the picture is courtesy of http://www.cfcnet.co.uk/

Update:
For EPL lovers, there is a good news that we can watch a part of EPL games at Lativi and Trans 7 (under negotiation).

Me and My Blog

I am just reminded that I forget to write a welcome word to starting this blog. I started blogging after looking Greg Mankiw's blog and inspired from it.

In the beginning, it was just spontaneous action to commenting Indonesia's phenomena, then I've written what I've been thinking, again and again, and today it have been 5 months and 23 posts. And I did understood that I need a media to express my idea and view personally, honestly, freely and independently.

Until now, I don't yet publish this blog, even in a limited audience. I just write as like as I want. After writing this welcome word, I plan to let my friends and people out there know what I've been writing.

Who am I?

Well, I am a low level of bureaucrat and junior planner at National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), so I am an ordinary employee and a part of a jungle of bureaucracy. I am happy that I work for Bappenas that has prestigious duties in delivering welfare for all people in Indonesia, but in many times I have different opinions about how to deliver it. In my office, personally I have so many duties but I have limited access to express my thought and view. It is correlating with decision making, and I am far for it. Again, I am just a junior planner.

My education backgrounds are business administration (bachelor from University of Brawijaya Malang) and economics (master from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), and in the most posts I prefer using economics term but with different aroma.

And then, this blog is my mirror what I am going to do in the future.

Expansion of State Budget

In the next fiscal year, our state budget will expand more than IDR 84 trillion (check at this for the report) or raise 10 percent nominally, but by deducting inflation factor the increase is only around 3-3.5 percent . This increase is expected to be able to promote economic growth until 6.8 percent. Well, it seems that it is making sense.

I posted an abstract of my thesis here that tells that there is negative impact of corruption on development. According to a model developed by Del Monte and Papagni (2001) the channel is state budget. Corruption suffers implementation of state budget, however state budget cannot push growth effectively. That's why there are differences of negative impact between developed and developing countries and among regions (Asia, Africa, South America, Eastern and Western Europe) because the levels of corruption are different among countries. I also conclude that by an increase in combating corruption would push an efficiency of state budget, and at the end it will enhance growth.

Unluckily, Indonesia is still facing bad level of corruption. Combating corruption is moving, but it takes time to see the good result. From 2004 to 2006 the level of corruption decreases from 2 to 2.4 (note that the higher value of level is cleaner, so corruption fall) but this point is still high level of corruption, and the ranking is from 133 of 146 countries to 130 of 163 countries.

In my opinion, state budget is not yet the answer of growth in the short term.

Update:
There is a bad news that the level of corruption in 2007 is higher than that in 2006. The value is 2.3 or drop 0.1 from the last year.

Domestic Loan

This is my insight about Domestic loan. Lately, I am being involved in drafting a government regulation (Peraturan Pemerintah - PP) about Domestic Loan, or more specific, loan from national bank for funding government projects that are mostly infrastructure projects and defense and police equipments. Kompas published it with a neutral view.

There is information that national bank is over-liquid, but the rate is no less than 8 percent (per year). From national bank side, giving credit to government is no risk, and must be very gainful. Please attention that this loan is commercial loan.

Ok, now please compare with soft loan (usually for infrastructure projects) that has rate no more than 4 percent and with export credit facility (usually for defense and police equipments) that has average rate around 5 percent. Note that Indonesia has abundant donors bilaterally and multilaterally in order to get those loans.

I am not a proponent for foreign debt, but actually we can simply choose what the most efficient loan is. I am sad for the decision makers (either RI-1, RI-2, and Minister of Finance), and I am worry this decision is related with a group interest.

Update:
In my opinion, the culprit is vice president (VP), because he has a duty to lead economy ministries especially in term of state budget. In this case, this alternative funding is initially just to finance defense and police equipments, but then VP diverse the term to accelerate the development of infrastructure projects. Please ready to be a watch-dog who the owner of the winning bidder is when the projects are ready to implement.

Professor Emil Salim

In the last Tuesday, I attended a meeting about the progress of National Action Plan for Global Climate Change coordinated by Ministry of Environment as represent of my big boss, Deputy of Bappenas Chairman for funding affairs. Actually I was boring and tired because I have a lot of datelines, but there was a surprise when the meeting was opened. Yes, Professor Emil Salim (you can see his completed profile in this) opened and led the meeting. If it happened before 1993 or when he were still a minister, there would have not been surprise. Now, he is just an adviser, no more than it, but his charisma is undoubted. Still with his special styles, strike forward, eager, strong and high spirit.

Then, what was happening in the meeting? He controlled the discussion entirely. I was amazed how he conducted the audiences in order to deliver the objective of the meeting. Here is an excerpt:

"This is an action plan. Which one is representative of Ministry of Energy? Do you know what you must do? What must government do in short term, medium term, and long term? Have you had a meeting about this in your ministry? Ok, If you arrange to do this, you become the next minister."

Ha ha ha. Still have a big confidence. One of audiences said that Professor is still a minister, Rahmat Witoelar (the real minister) is just an successor.

Keep the spirit high Prof.