Vice President Ma\'ruf Amin handing the 2019 Public Agency Information Disclosure award to the Constitutional Court represented by Deputy Chief Justice Aswanto, Thursday (20/11) at the Vice Presidential Buidling, Jakarta. Photo by Humas MK.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—For the first time, the Constitutional Court (MK) received the 2019 Public Agency Information Disclosure award to the Constitutional Court as an Informative Public Agency. Vice President Ma\'ruf Amin handed the award from the Central Information Commission (KIP) in person to Deputy Chief Constitutional Justice Aswanto on Thursday (21/11/2019) at the State Palace, Jakarta. “Congratulations to agencies receiving the 2019 Public Agency Information Disclosure awards,” the vice president said.

In his remarks, Ma\'ruf stated that the need for information is important for the public as it is guaranteed by the 1945 Constitution. Therefore, he added, providing information is an obligation for ministries/agencies in accordance with applicable laws, such as Law Number 14 of 2008 on Public Information Disclosure. "One of the Government\'s missions over the next five years is to create a government that is clean, effective, and trustworthy. This is important for public information disclosure," he explained.

Ma\'ruf also explained that there are several challenges faced by the people of Indonesia, that the public information disclosure is not only related to access, but content. This, he explained, is so that there is no misinformation.

Chief of the Central Information Commission (KIP) Gede Narayana said that although the number of informative public agencies increased in 2019 when compared to the previous year, the number is still not significant. "Not Informative" public agencies are 53.24 percent of the 355 public agencies were monitored and evaluated in 2019. Based on the 2019 monitoring and evaluation results, KIP found a total of 189 public agencies that are "Uninformative." Narayana hoped that all public agencies leaders as PPID (Information and Documentation Management Official) supervisor as executors of information services to the public can make information disclosure a culture. "If the leader of a public agency has made the implementation of public information disclosure a culture, automatically the [agency] always seeks to provide the best information services to the public," Narayana said.

Narayana also realizes that the high number of "uninformative" public agencies must encourage KIP to be more active in promoting information disclosure in the country, supported by a strong commitment from the government. The level of participation of public agencies in this year’s monitoring and evaluation increased from only 62.83 percent in 2018 to 74.37 percent. As much as 92.94 percent of public higher education institutions (PTN), 55.96 percent of SOEs, 42.11 percent of nonstructural agencies (LNS), 78.26 percent of state institutions and non-ministry state institutions (LN-LPNK), 85.29 percent of provincial governments, 100 percent of ministries, and 100 percent of political party public agencies participated in the monitoring and evaluation. (Lulu Anjarsari)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti