Indonesia: Half pay for Jakarta lateness
The Governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama has introduced a new disciplinary measure to reduce the salaries of workers who report to work five minutes late once in a month by 50 percent to ensure value for money.
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The no nonsense governor popularly called "Ahok" said the move was to weed out lazy and non-performing workers who receive salaries for no work done.
He said the only solution to solving Jakarta's problems was "fire, fire and fire", he said during a familiarization tour of some tourism sites of the country by two Ghanaian journalists.
The measure is to run the government institution like a private company where every Indonesia rupiah is to be accounted for.
Subsequently, he has reviewed the salaries of workers upwards from a minimum of $340 to $ 1,400 to motivate workers to give of their best.
As part of the reforms, the governor has introduced a new mobile application for residents to lodge complaints on specific problems affecting their communities to enable officers react within 24 hours to fix it.
Beyond maintaining the health of the traffic prone metropolis, the move is also to ensure that his staff are kept on their toes and the 12 million Jakarta residents remain happy.
Since the introduction of the policy workers are said to report usually early to avoid the heavy traffic which is said to be the main cause of the lateness.
Ahok became the 17th governor on November 14, 2014 to replace the current president, Joko Widodo, then governor.
He remains the only elected governor of the 34 provinces and remain resolute despite recent protestations by some Muslim youth calling for his removal for his alleged blasphemy statement against Muslims.
The massive protest was repeated Friday but the governor will not budge. Meanwhile, president Widodo's government has begun the construction of a number of underground asphalted roads to ease the traffic in the capital, Jakarta.