Thursday, March 13, 2008

“Why Agus and Pardede?”, says economic pundits; “Why Choose a Candidate?”, says me.

The fit and proper test to appoint the new central governor of Bank of Indonesia is coming. President SBY gave 2 candidates to fill the position. They are Agus Martowardojo and Raden Pardede. Both of them have a lot of experiences in banking in Indonesia. Agus is now the main director of Bank Mandiri and Pardede of PT Perusahaan Pengelolaan Aset. Alas, both of them were rejected by DPR

As I know, rule of thumb for the status of central bank to the government is independent to each other so that they don’t intervene much. Actually, I could not understand why, while empirics evidences show that if an economy is to succeed, there should be a solid coordination between fiscal and monetary. Anyway, this is not the point of my writing this time.

The point of my writing this time is that if the government is to be independent to the central bank then why should Mr. President choose a candidate to run BI? Should I be surprised? I don't think so!

However, I still can’t get it!