Minister of Home Affairs asks local governments not to recruit new honorers

Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian attends a meeting of Commission II of the House of Representatives at the parliament complex, Jakarta, Monday (13/4/2026). ANTARA/HO-DPR

JAKARTA - Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian urged regional governments not to recruit new honorers because it could burden employee spending and become a time bomb for the region itself.

"Honorers have been suspended, this is a request for all regional heads, they must be firm that there are no new honorers," said Taufik, Monday, June 8.

According to Tito, honorary personnel in the administrative field tend to be incompetent. In addition, it also touches on recruitment that is not in accordance with the provisions.

"If for administrative personnel, they are often incompetent, they do not have the capacity. Maybe it is innate from previous officials, regional heads, the success team is put there, come at 08.00, go home at 10.00, so the burden," he continued.

Tito added that the number of honorary personnel continued to increase and accumulate until they demanded certainty of status to be appointed as government employees with work agreements (PPPK) or civil servants (PNS).

"With all due respect to this good forum, for the heads of regional heads, please do not add any more honorers because it will be a burden, a burden on employee spending costs and become the next regional head, a time bomb," he said.

However, the Minister of Home Affairs emphasized that the labor that had been recruited should not be dismissed because the government did not want to cause unrest among employees.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of Commission II of the DPR, M. Rifqinizamy Karsayuda, said that the ban on the recruitment of honoraria personnel was mandatory as regulated in Law Number 20 of 2023 concerning the State Civil Apparatus (ASN).

"Even in the revision of the ASN Law in the future, we will propose that there must be sanctions for officials who then recruit," said Rifqi, when met after the meeting.

The legislator who deals with domestic government affairs emphasized that what is needed at this time is to increase the meritocracy of the civil service and PPPK bureaucracy.

"If we increase meritocracy, we increase professionalism, we increase competence, of course we hope that there will be efficiency in the use of bureaucracy in our place," he said.

He also advised that the regional income and expenditure budget (APBD) should not be spent only on employee expenses.

"In some districts/cities, there is spending by its employees that is more than 60-70 percent so that the fiscal space for development is very small. We must not be cruel to the community. Don't let the APBD then not be presented for development, but for employee spending," he said.