The Opportunities and Challenges of Legal Metrology in the New Era of Indonesian Decentralization Based on Sustainable Development Goals

The policy of standard and measurements by the Indonesian Government through a legal metrology system aims to ensure a level applied to all fields of standard and measurement, to improve the quality of Indonesian products which can compete in free trade, and control pre-packet to help reduce fraudulent. This will help the government collect correct taxes on export import, reduces dispute transaction to ensure the consumer protection and with legal metrology will improve economic condition for all parties as well as assist in poverty reduction as one of the SDGs goals. Legal Metrology based on the Law Number 23 of 2014 concerning Regional Government transferred the authority from Province into the authority of Regency Government/City in Indonesia. This study uses qualitative-descriptive methodology in-depth interviews. The result of this study show that the authority change to Regency Government/City has resulted in many problems, including infrastructure, budgeting, human resources, and regional regulation problems. Since the amendment in 2014 the number of Legal Metrology Units formed in Regency Government/City was only 39% of 514 regencies and cities throughout Indonesia. This has caused Legal Metrology services in Indonesia experiencing stagnant services, where tera and tera ulang services in some Regency/City were hampered. The legal metrology services stagnation resulted in no guaranteed measurement correctness in trade transaction, UTTP legal uncertainty, untraceably instrument based on international standard, and failure in sustaining consumer protection.