A Further Comment on the Central Jakarta Office of the Directorate General of Immigration

Photo © Beatrice Murch, used under a Creative Commons License

My least favorite place in Indonesia. The paper-pushers in the crowded, hot, smoke-filled building in an out-of-the-way part of Kemayoran Lama try my patience. But more than that, it reminds me of just how much Indonesia’s bureaucracy bleeds this country of time, money, and nerve.

I was at the office today to apply for what’s know as an “Exit-Reentry Permit,” or ERP, so that I will be permitted to leave the country next week to attend a conference in Manila, and subsequently return three days later. I do not know what the rationale is behind the requirement that foreigners apply for an ERP, and perhaps had I shown up at the airport without one, I would have been permitted to go. But both the Ministry of Research and Fulbright Indonesia advised me to obtain one, and– not wanting to chance it– I put the wheels in motion. Three weeks ago, Fulbright Indonesia requested that the Ministry of Research write a letter on my behalf to the Directorate General of Immigration, which in turn requests that the Directorate General grant me an ERP. I received the letter late last week, printed it out, and brought it with me today.

Today’s visit was slightly less painful than the week-long permitting charade I endured in January. I showed up at the office at 1:30. I went upstairs to the third floor, which has handled most of my business in the past. I was told to return to the first floor. Back downstairs, I asked an information officer on the first floor where I could apply for an ERP. He pointed me to the first window, where a cheerful lady told me to pay around 50 cents for the form that needed to be filled out. I paid, asked to borrow a pen from her, began to fill it out, accidentally transposed my birth date and the date my passport was issued, bought a new form, filled it out, and was directed to another window.

At this window, a female officer took my forms and the letter from the Ministry of Research, examined them, stamped them, and then asked for a photocopy of my passport and alien registration book. I wasn’t carrying photocopies on me, so I half-jokingly asked the woman, “You all can do that, right?” (They can, but they don’t). I was sent back to the first window, where for a fifteen cent fee, the officers photocopied the relevant pages. I returned to the ERP window, gave the photocopies to the officer, who typed some of my information into the ancient computer in front of her, and was told to proceed to the third floor. There, I found the window I was supposed to report to, apparently some manner of “security check.” When I presented my documents, I was promptly told to return downstairs, because my information was not yet in the computer. I insisted that the woman at the previous window had entered my information, and the official there reluctantly and slowly walked over to her Blackberry and called her colleague downstairs to make sure that the information had indeed been entered. It had.

I was told to sit and wait, but answered that I would rather wait at the window. I was told to “sit down,” this time in English. I smiled and said I’d rather stand, and the officials in the office behind the window laughed, while silently demonstrating mild annoyance with my persistence. An official stamped my application with two different stamps and signed them, and then let my papers rest on a table in front of him. For the next twenty minutes, he and his colleagues chatted, watched television (a game show), finished their long lunches, and glanced over at me, hoping I would sit down. After the twenty minutes had expired, the officer up front gave my papers back to me. (Two other bule at the window had arrived earlier and waited longer, so waiting at the window appeared to have effectively pressured them into releasing my documents earlier).

I returned downstairs, to the ERP window. I was given a receipt and told to proceed to the payment window. There, the Indonesian government reached into my pockets and extracted 200,000 rupiah, or around $20, but not before making me wait another 10 minutes for a receipt confirming I had paid, which I then took back to my friends at the ERP window so that they could confirm I’d paid before processing my ERP. Then they told me to come back the next day, after 11am. All in all, my visit today lasted an hour.

I relate the story primarily to demonstrate a particular truth of the Indonesian bureaucracy: it is an employment program, but not a work program. Most of the tasks performed by the staff of the Directorate General are wholly unnecessary. Hell, even the concept of an exit permit for a foreigner with a valid visa is absurd. But despite this, the civil servants do very little work themselves: they can’t even be bothered to make photocopies, or to ferry documents from one part of the office to another. But in a country where 25% of the work force exist outside the formal economy, and where some political parties derive much of their support from the numbers inherent in the bureaucratic bloat that they engineer, uncivil service thrives.