OpenGov sat down with Djoko Hartoyo, the Director for Information, Assembly, Public Relation and Legal in the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Resources (CMMAR) in The Republic of Indonesia. It is the Indonesian government ministry in charge of planning and policy coordination and synchronisation of policies in the maritime affairs.
It is a new ministry, in operation since October 2014. It coordinates between four major ministries, namely the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ministry of Transportation and Ministry of Tourism, reflecting an extraordinarily broad ambit of operations. The ministry coordinates and synchronises the programs and policies of the four ministries mentioned above.
Mr. Hartoyo is in charge of Information, Assembly, Public Relations and Legal, which also reflects a wide scope in a ministry already handling a broad array of responsibilities.
Indonesia is an archipelago of over 10,000 islands. Nearly 70% of the total area of Indonesia lies next to the sea, giving it the second longest coastline in the world. Maritime affairs are vital to the country. So, it is a challenge for the ministry.
Mr. Hartoyo said, “We started from zero, from scratch. We are building up ICT capabilities starting from nothing. But we are improving gradually. We grew from 2 storeys to 20 storeys and we started purchasing the software and hardware in compliance with the Ministry of Communication and Informatics security guidelines.” The aforementioned Ministry supervises other ministries in terms of ICT security measures and implementation.
CMMAR has started building a common dashboard. The four ministries it coordinates between already have ICT systems, since 10-15 years. CMMAR collates the data and create a single point of access for the ministries whenever they need any information. This appears to be in line with data integration and dissemination initiatives at other ministries in Indonesia, for internal decision-making or public use. .
As an example, the President is focusing on reducing the dwelling time (average time a container spends at a seaport terminal, shorter times indicating greater efficiency and lower costs) at the ports. It was at around 6-7 days earlier, twice as long as Malaysia and five times longer than Singapore. Now it has been reduced to 3.2-3.3 days.
The President wants it to be brought down further to 2 days. In March 2016, the government introduced a new mechanism called Indonesia Single Risk Management which is going to be integrated with the Indonesian National Single Window (INSW). Every business will be given a single identity to apply for export and import permits.
To take another example, this time from the Ministry of Tourism, Indonesia grants visa-exempt entry for tourists from 169 countries for up to 30 day stay. Foreigners from these 169 countries can enter and exit Indonesian through 124 Immigration Checkpoints, spread across airports, seaports and land borders. The government needs to track the flow of tourists through every airport and every harbour.
Suppose the minister asks how many tourists arrived in Bali during last week. The ministry must be able to provide that information. CMMAR’s role is important in collecting such data, which involves multiple ministries.
The ministry is also in the process of implementing new intelligent security and monitoring systems. They are also gradually moving to the cloud.
When asked about ICT targets, Mr. Hartoyo replied, “There is no end destination. ICT development is a continuous process. Changes happen fast. We need to keep improving, keep upgrading all the time.”