Cutting Back on Hotel meetings

TWICE EDI Syahputra asked the dozens of people waiting in front of the multipurpose meeting room of the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform to be patient on Friday last week. The head of the Ministry's Human Resources Bureau apologized to inspectorate personnel of a number of regional administrations for keeping them waiting for over three hours. "The coordination meeting of provincial inspectorates will be delayed because the room is being used for another program," he said. "It's the consequence of the ban on us from holding meetings at hotels."

After President Joko Widodo prohibited government bureaucrats from convening meetings at hotels, said Edi, his office was forced to do some acrobatics to arrange its schedules. All the schedules and agendas must now enter the general affairs division two days before programs. "Otherwise, it will be difficult to find a room," added Edi. Previously, when rooms were not sufficient, meetings could be moved to hotels.