JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Indonesia’s finance minister pledged on Tuesday that the government would continue pressing reforms after a bruising battle in parliament over the rescue of a small bank in 2008. Sri Mulyani Indrawati, regarded by foreign investors as a top reformer in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s cabinet, has been seen as the target of a highly politicised inquiry into the 2008 bailout of Bank Century.
Analysts have said Indrawati’s political enemies have tried to use the inquiry to unseat her and derail plans aimed at eradicating graft and reforming the civil service. Indonesia was a star performer among the emerging markets last year on hopes of further reforms, but some analysts have said the Bank Century inquiry showed some pro-market policy changes were likely to meet resistence in parliament.
However, Indrawati told reporters on Tuesday that she was unbowed. “Let the people be the judge of all of this,” she said. “I am still continuing the role, the policy making. We are still focusing on reform.”
She said she expected attacks to continue but that she was optimistic about the future. “Indonesia may be a little bit messy or a little bit noisy
but in the end a good policy will prevail,” she said.
Bureaucratic reform was among her top priorities, she said. “The bureaucracy reform which started in the finance ministry will be implemented in 11 other ministries and this will cover the attorney general, the police, the military and all other institutions. We will start in 2010,” she said.
Indrawati also said that she was confident the reforms would help Indonesia achieve investment grade status on its sovereign debt within a year.
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
