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Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Thursday defended his move to set up a body intended to boost his efforts to attract investment, reform the bureaucracy and fight corruption.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla had reportedly said last week that he had not been consulted about the body and thought it was unnecessary, triggering widespread media speculation of a rift with the president.
Yudhoyono has appointed a reform-minded former attorney general, Marsillam Simanjuntak, to head the body, called the Working Unit for Managing Reform Programmes (UKPPPR).
Yudhoyono said the body would not interfere with the work of cabinet ministers or that of other institutions, one of the concerns raised by critics, and denied that the vice president had been excluded in discussions of its formation.
"It's within my authority to set up the UKPPPR. I'm the one most responsible for the ineffectiveness or effectiveness of the management of the government," he told a news conference.
He said the idea to establish the body followed an evaluation of efforts to improve the investment climate, eradicate corruption and establish the rule of law in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country. "I concluded that there's a need to improve the management of those important agenda items," he said.
He said the controversy in the media over the agency was political and could be counter-productive to reform efforts. There has been speculation in local media that Kalla feared the political party he chairs, Golkar, would be the target in Simanjuntak's reform drive.
Golkar was the political vehicle of former autocratic president Suharto and Simanjuntak is said to have been a proponent of the party's disbandment when he was in the cabinet of President Abdurrahman Wahid.
Yudhoyono won the country's first direct president election in 2004 on pledges to reduce poverty and weed out corruption, seen as endemic in the country and a major barrier to investment.

Copyright Reuters, 2006

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