Indonesia’s President ​Prabowo Subianto yesterday replaced the head of the country’s disaster management agency in a bid to restore confidence in the government’s ability to bring intensifying land and forest fires under control.

Lt.-Gen. Kristomei Sianturi, 50, was sworn in as the chief of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) at the State Palace in Jakarta, replacing Lt.-Gen. Suharyanto. Speaking after the ceremony, the two-star army general said that Prabowo had given him orders to move as quickly as possible to bring the fires under control.

“The directive is clear: keep pushing forward and start your duties promptly,” he said, according to Kompas. “The target is as soon as possible, because the people are already affected.”

Kristomei said that he would review the BNPB’s response procedures to ensure faster action during disasters and prevent avoidable deaths.

“Responsiveness must be measured in minutes, not hours. That is what we will evaluate going forward, so there are no more unnecessary casualties,” he said.

No official reason was given for Suharyanto’s replacement, but the change came a day after the outgoing BNPB chief’s younger brother was arrested over alleged corruption involving emergency relief funds, the Straits Times reported. The Corruption Eradication Commission said that the investigation centers on BNPB’s ready-to-use emergency funds, which are used to meet urgent needs during disasters, but did not say whether money intended to fight the forest fires was misappropriated.

Kristomei’s appointment – the second major change to Prabowo’s cabinet since the appointment of a new foreign minister on October 1 – is also likely intended to reassure Indonesia’s neighbors that it remains committed to fighting the wildfires that are currently raging on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. The forest and peatland fires have created a thick toxic haze that has darkened the skies above Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Timor-Leste, Brunei, and parts of the Philippines, forcing school closures and impacting the health of tens of millions of people.

As the haze has persisted, Jakarta has become the focus of increasing criticism for its failure to contain – or prevent – the fires, many of which Indonesian officials admit were lit deliberately to clear agricultural land. As I noted yesterday, Social media users in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia have become increasingly angry at Jakarta’s response to the fires, with some Indonesian netizens even urging Singapore and Malaysia to impose sanctions on their own government.

Meanwhile, politicians in Malaysia have called for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government to lodge formal diplomatic complaints with Jakarta, and the country’s foreign minister said that he plans to raise the issue at an upcoming meeting of his ASEAN counterparts.

Yesterday, after air quality readings in some parts of Singapore reached the worst levels in more than a decade, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said that the government was looking into which companies may be responsible for the fires in Indonesia.

“Where warranted, we will take action under Singapore’s Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, and explore joint action with other countries,” he said on social media.

Under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, passed in 2014, Singaporean authorities can take legal action against companies responsible for causing or contributing to haze pollution in Singapore, even if their activities take place overseas. History suggests that Singapore will refrain from confronting Indonesia directly over the haze issue, but the fact that Wong raised the prospect of investigations is a sign of the government’s growing frustration with its large neighbor.

Indonesia has announced a number of other measures designed to combat the fires. Prabowo yesterday approved foreign assistance for its fire-fighting efforts, Foreign Minister Arrmanatha Nasir said yesterday. “The president has also given his approval, and discussions are now underway at the technical level. In this case, the technical discussions are being handled by BNPB,” he said at a closed-door meeting.

“What we need to emphasize is that this is a matter of great seriousness and is receiving the President’s direct attention,” Arrmanatha said, although he did not specify which countries had offered assistance or what form the assistance would take.

Also yesterday, the BBC reported that aircraft were deployed to scatter pellets of dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) in the air above South Sumatra province, one of the regions most affected by the haze. Indonesian police have also named more than 200 people and nine companies as suspects in forest and land fire investigations across the country.

Wasisto Raharjo Jati, a political analyst at the National Research and Innovation Agency, told the Straits Times that the fires had “damaged the government’s image” within ASEAN, and that the reappointment of the BNPB head was “certainly part of efforts to restore the government’s image domestically and internationally.”

One way or another, the current fires will come to an end. Whether Indonesia succeeds in winning back the confidence of its neighbors will also depend on whether it puts in place policies and structures that can prevent a recurrence of a similar crisis in future.