Muhaimin Iskandar is the new Minister of Manpower and Transmigration on the new cabinet of President SBY. It was announced last night (21/10) at exactly 22.00 by President SBY the new cabinet for his second term of his administration.The announcement of Muhaimin Iskandar as Minister of Manpower and Transmigration was not too surprising, as SBY had already informed to the public about the minister position when he held the audition for Minister at his house in Cikeas-Bogor. After meeting with SBY, each of the Minister Candidates informed publicly about the questions and directives from SBY, and implicitly the public can understand about the position being offered to the candidate.
The composition of the new cabinet dominates by members political parties who supported SBY during the Presidential Election last June 2009. There are 20 Minister out of 34 are from Political Parties including Muhaimin Iskandar as Minister of Manpower and Transmigration.
There are many scepticism and disappointment among experts and the public towards the selected ministers from political party background, as their competence being doubted, else some of them were lost in Legislative election which means their constituents were no longer trusted them, so how they will be able to manage the trust of all Indonesian people during their administrative.
Muhaimin Iskandar currently is the chairman of Nation Awakening Party (PKB), One of Indonesian Party with long history of internal conflicts. He is nephew of the famous Gus Dur, 4th President of Indonesia and also the founder of PKB whom Muhaimin Iskandar had conflict with.
Graduate from Political Faculty of University of Gajah Mada and Master of Communication Science, Muhaimin Iskandar is genuine politician, where he spent most of his time in Political Party and Parliament. His last position was one of Parliament Deputy. He spent most of his young time at Moslem Cleric Enviroment in Jombang.
With such background, there should be concerned with his competence to run Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration as he never dealt anything related to Manpower nor Transmigration, even when he was in Parliament, from any recollection, he never posted in Commission 9 which deals with Manpower and Transmigration.
Muhaimin Iskandar will have to use all his time available to catch up with all the issues related to Manpower and Transmigration and understanding them.
Muhaimin Iskandar is replacing his predecessor, Erman Soeparno who also comes from PKB. It seems Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration is allocated for candidates from PKB rather than choosing competent professional to run it, similar with Ministry of Escalation of Left Territories. But at least Erman Soeparno is businessman who at least ever deal matter related to Labour.
Jumhur Hidayat, head of National Board of Placement and Protection of Indonesia Manpower Overseas (BNP2TKI), in his statement published by BNP2TKI website, is confident that Muhaimin Iskandar is the appropriate person for the job and he is good friend of him, hopefully the dispute between BNP2TKI and Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration can be eliminated during Muhaimin’s administration.
In the same website, Muhaimin said that he will work closely with BNP2TKI of National Program of Manpower Placement Overseas.
Everyone hopes that those statements are not just lips services for the public, where all stakeholders have been suffered from the conflict which made everything rules, regulations, procedures becomes uncertain.
Like the proverb said, “Don’t judge the book from the cover”, we should give Muhaimin a chance to prove the public that he is the best candidate chosen by Presiden SBY to run Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration. 100 days of his administration will be the time for President SBY and the public to evaluate him
Congratulation to Muhaimin Iskandar as Minister of Manpower and Transmigration.
