This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS  JAKARTA 000873 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
USDA FOR OA/ROBERTS/SIMMONS, APHIS/DEHAVEN, DLP/WETZEL, 
ICD/PETRIE 
MANILA FOR APHIS/CARDENAS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAGR ETRD PGOV ID
SUBJECT: Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture:  Anatomy of 
Failure 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary.  The GOI Ministry of Agriculture under 
the Leadership of Dr. Ir. Anton Apriyanto, formerly a 
researcher and lecturer on food ingredient technology, has 
made little headway in the year plus that he has been in 
place.  From agricultural trade policy to Avian Influenza 
(AI), the operations of government owned plantations to 
implementation of biosafety and food safety protocols, the 
Ministry is drifting.  The lack of vision, inability to 
implement rudimentary changes to positively affect producer 
income, and apparent lack of action to keep the Indonesian 
public apprized of the basic animal health issues 
surrounding AI all point to an under performing Ministry. 
End Summary. 
 
Adrift in a Sea of Politics 
___________________________ 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Minister Apriyanto has never held elective office, 
nor has he served in any Ministry position before.  He was 
appointed to his current position by President Yudhoyono in 
October 2004.  Dr. Apriyanto is a member of the Prosperous 
Justice Party (PKS), Indonesia's fastest-growing, most 
staunchly Islamist, urban-based party which supports the 
current administration.  Affable in private meetings, he 
nevertheless has exhibited a certain ruthlessness in his 
dealings with Ministry staff.  Qualified senior staff have 
been replaced, frequently with whispers of conflict with the 
Minister's view as to the proper place of women in his 
Ministry, and/or his desire to place PKS sympathizers in 
lead positions.  Most Director Generals (DGs) in the 
Ministry have been replaced, as well as many Director-level 
officials.  Although a number of women holding senior 
positions have been removed, not one woman has subsequently 
been appointed to senior levels (DGs or Directors).  Many 
appointees are new to senior management positions, and many 
are from the Agricultural Institute of Bogor (IPB), a 
leading Indonesian agricultural university and research 
center, and the Minister's former employer. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) A concentration on political correctness at the 
expense of management and technical competence has 
negatively affected the Ministry's day-to-day management. 
The ability of the Ministry to respond to breaking issues 
has been compromised, with the most obvious case being its 
actions with regard to AI.  For example, the Ministry is now 
detailed to provide daily AI updates to the President, with 
weekly and monthly summaries.  When queried as to how often 
the Ministry makes public announcements regarding AI and 
animal health countermeasures, the response was "when 
someone dies".  This is clearly an indication of a Ministry 
that is not focused on a matter firmly within their mandate. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) In addition, long-term planning appears to have 
slipped a notch or two.  The Ministry is apparently not as 
adept as formerly with respect to maintaining their 
bureaucratic portfolio.  A case in point is biosafety.  The 
GOI formerly assigned the management of this to the Ministry 
of Agriculture.  In May 2005 via Presidential Decree, the 
responsibility was shifted to the Ministry of Environment. 
Since that time, no GOI actions with respect to implementing 
the Cartagena Protocol, biosafety regulation or food safety 
regulation have occurred.  The "biosafety committee" 
(representatives from Ministries of Agriculture, 
Environment, Health, the Food and Drug Agency) required to 
vet such regulations has not even been named, much less held 
a meeting in over six months. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The Agriculture Minister also appears to hold the 
analysis of the Ministry's staff in low regard.  He has 
appointed ad hoc committees of advisors, so-called Expert's 
Commissions, to provide advice, e.g., market access for beef 
from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy  (BSE)-affected 
countries.  These committees meet only about three or four 
times per year, and are made up mostly of academics known to 
the Minister from his days as one of them.  The committees 
have developed the habit of countering the analysis of 
Ministry staff, which has had two direct results.  One, 
Ministry technical staff have become demoralized, and two, 
the transparency of the Ministry's decision-making process 
has declined.  The net effect has been to bring most 
decision making to the Minister himself, and his personal 
staff, many of whom are also from IPB. 
 
Corruption of a Different Stripe? 
_________________________________ 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Allegations of corruption within the Ministry of 
Agriculture are nothing new.  They run the gamut from 
special payments to acquire import permits, stories that 
recent rice imports were to the benefit of the Vice 
President's party to bribery by multinational firms to 
secure favorable regulatory change (for which Monsanto paid 
a $1.5 million fine in the U.S. in January 2005).  Recent 
allegations indicate that the Ministry's senior officials 
may now be attempting to funnel import rights to PKS front 
companies.  Although difficult to prove, this particular 
rumor has come from both the private sector and (non-PKS) 
Agriculture Ministry officials. 
 
¶7. (SBU) At the end of 2004 and into early 2005, the 
Minister initially held up for half a year the sale of 
Goodyear's North Sumatra rubber plantation to Bridgestone on 
the grounds that the property should first be offered to a 
local company.  The Minister's stance ran counter to 
Indonesia's foreign investment rules and rumors circulated 
that Bakrie Plantations, affiliated with then Coordinating 
Minister for the Economy Aburizal Bakrie, was interested in 
purchasing the plantation.  Bakrie Plantations, however, 
never approached Goodyear on purchasing the land. 
Eventually, in a meeting with Goodyear and Bridgestone 
representatives, the Minister agreed to the sale after 
receiving assurances from Goodyear that Bakrie Plantations 
had not made an offer to buy the land. 
 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Comment: The apparent decline in the efficacy of 
the Ministry of Agriculture has become a problem in terms of 
making proper representations of U.S. trade policy issues. 
The case of market access for U.S. beef and products is 
illustrative, but not isolated.  Additional issues include 
collaboration on biotechnology, e.g., how to select senior 
policy makers to attend U.S.-funded events when the GOI has 
yet to name the principals; cooperation in the animal health 
sector to combat AI.  The Ministry is tucked away in South 
Jakarta, in the direction of Bogor.  Its physical distance 
from town seems a metaphor for its increasing distance from 
the real problems that it is expected to address. 
Interestingly, these complaints are heard from other 
Missions, UN organizations, the press, and local businessmen 
and women.  It appears unlikely that complaints from 
diplomats, multinational donors, (mostly) ethnic Chinese 
businesspeople or the fourth estate 1will bring about 
significant change.  Keeping a non-performer in the 
agriculture portfolio is a costly decision for the GOI. 
Agricultural policy directly affects many millions of 
Indonesians who still rely on agriculture for their 
livelihood. In addition, the society at large suffers from 
ineffective implementation and management of agricultural 
policies that have the potential to cause serious general 
problems.  But given the importance of the Minister's party 
to President SBY's political support, and that one PKS 
Coordinating Minister was recently dropped from the cabinet, 
it is unlikely that Minister Anton will be replaced any time 
soon. 
 
Pascoe