Deputy Cabinet Secretary: Utilization of Information Technology Vital in Holding Cabinet Meetings

Participants of Coordination Meeting on Quality Improvement of the Implementation of Cabinet Meeting take a group photo, in Palembang, South Sumatra, Friday (8/3). (Photo by: Anggun/PR).

To provide cabinet management support to the President in administering the government is one of Cabinet Secretariat’s tasks, according to Deputy Cabinet Secretary Ratih Nurdiati.

“In organizing cabinet management, Cabinet Secretariat plays a role to ensure that policies, directives, decisions or instructions of the President can be corrected, more than that can be carried out properly by  members of the Cabinet,” said Ratih at the Coordination Meeting on Quality Improvement of Cabinet Meeting through the Utilization of Information Technology on Friday (8/3), in Palembang, South Sumatra.

To this end, Cabinet Secretariat regularly proposes that a cabinet or limited meeting can discuss strategic issues and broadly impact nationally, which requires the President’s decision, she said.

“The tasks are under Presidential Instruction Number 7 of 2017 on the Formulation, Implementing, Supervising, and Controlling Policy at the state ministries and Government institution levels. Cabinet Secretariat is also mandated to supervise the implementation of the President’s directives already made at a cabinet meeting and limited meeting,” Ratih said.

Ratih went on to say that a cabinet meeting or limited meeting does not necessarily mean that the participants are the President and Cabinet Ministers. “In fact, it is attended by the President, Cabinet Ministers and all relevant stakeholders,” she said..

It is the Cabinet Secretariat’s task to ensure that that all stakeholders needed for discussion and decisions making for each meeting have been presented, she added.

“For example, it is the regional heads who become the key participants of 44-cabinet meetings related to the acceleration of national strategic projects,” said Ratih, adding that they are also given the opportunity to report directly to the President regarding the development of projects in their area.

According to Ratih, during the administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, there are 516 cabinet meetings and limited meetings, meaning that 129 cabinet meetings and limited meetings are held in a year, equal to three times a week.

The key point is, she added, is a prompt and precise (cabinet and limited meeting), particularly in preparing for the meeting materials as well as accuracy to opt primary issues and the alternatives to be raised in the meeting,.

Such a precise cabinet meeting decision, according to Ratih, is of mutual interest because all of them are needed for further implementation guidelines.

“Therefore, it is also our shared duty to conduct the cabinet meeting as well as possible and we continue to develop the potentials that we have, mainly in the utilization of information technology that we are adopting this time,” Ratih added.

Caption photo: Speakers at the Coordination Meeting on Quality Improvement of the Implementation of Cabinet Meeting take a group photo, in Palembang, South Sumatra, Friday (8/3). (Photo by: Anggun/PR).

Meanwhile, Deputy to Cabinet Secretary for Cabinet Work Support Yuli Harsono said that Cabinet Secretariat has adopted various information technologies, including the meeting agenda information system, session invitation recapitulation system, and QR Code-based attendance system.

“We collaborate with the National Cyber ??and Code Body to build secure chat and secure email. We have also initiated the implementation of a paperless based cabinet meeting with material and exposure to audio-visual based shows. Likewise, to speed up the minutes of our cabinet meeting, we have initiated a speech-to-text tool that would instantly produce the minutes that we could disseminate to the participants of the meeting,” Yuli said.

In the future, according to Yuli, Cabinet Secretariat will use the information system on the dissemination of meeting materials. “The meeting materials can be read by the participants while sitting in the courtroom and will also change the meeting material to be received beforehand. Thus, each participant prepare all the material prepared from the ministry or institution,” Yuli said.

Yuli went on to say that this Coordination Meeting also aimed to figure out and evaluate the implementation of cabinet meetings or limited meetings as well as to obtain inputs from both the working partners of the Cabinet Secretariat and the coordination meeting’s participants in attendance in organizing a cabinet meeting, starting from the preparation, implementation, to the submission of minutes of the cabinet meeting.

“We need breakthroughs, innovation, and creativity to organize better, smoother, and more efficient cabinet meetings in the future,”he said. (RSF/EN)

Translated by: Muhardi

Edited by: M. Ersan Pamungkas