Sri Mulyani Hits BTS Corruption: The State Budget Never Cuts Digital Budget

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The government through the Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani stated that the presence of digital infrastructure is very important in supporting the achievement of national development. According to him, the presence of the state is proven through the allocation of a large number of budgets in the APBN.

"Information technology (IT) shaping the future," he said when he was a keynote speaker at the Indonesia Data and Economic (IDE) forum, quoted Friday, July 21.

According to the Minister of Finance, the pandemic conditions that have occurred in the past three years have increasingly encouraged the central role of technology in supporting various human activities. This also happens in a professional world, where many workers choose to be productive through digital channels.

Likewise, economic activity has soared very rapidly by utilizing online channels. Therefore, the government is strongly committed to continuing to build IT infrastructure in order to improve the welfare of people in the country.

"There are so many of us now investing in the digital field," he said.

However, over time, the state treasurer regretted the occurrence of legal cases in the implementation of the 4.0 genre technology.

The pandemic is three years old, many people work from home. Here the internet becomes important. That's why we build internet (facilitations), satellites, BTS towers (base transceiver stations) and others. Apart from that problem," he said.

"The only state budget that was not cut during yesterday's pandemic was to build digital infrastructure," continued the Minister of Finance.

As previously reported by the editors, there was an alleged corruption in the provision of 4G BTS towers in the 2020-2022 period which allegedly cost the state around Rp. 8 trillion. Meanwhile, this case itself also dragged central figures in the Indonesian Communication and Information (Menkominfo).