Minister Of Home Affairs Creates Inter-regional Competitive Climate Press Inflation

Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian in the Simultaneous Cheap Food Movement event, at the Bapanas Office, Jakarta, Monday (16/10/2023). ANTARA/Kuntum Riswan

JAKARTA - Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian admitted that he deliberately created a competitive climate between regions so that regional heads could compete to suppress the inflation rate.

"The problem is the relationship of regional heads. For that, we do zoommmaking every week we read out the highest and regional levels. We want to create a competitive climate between regions," said the Minister of Home Affairs at the Simultaneous Cheap Food Movement, at the National Food Agency Office (Bapanas), in Jakarta reported by ANTARA, Monday, October 16.

The Minister of Home Affairs said that according to President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi) instructions, the handling of inflation in the regions was carried out like handling COVID-19 which had to be monitored regularly. Therefore, the regional food task force always checks the prices of 12 food staples in the markets. If there is an increase, intervention must be carried out immediately to see the cause of the increase.

If there is an increase, immediately intervene to check what is lacking. This means that the stock is lacking, the supply is lacking or the distribution is stuck. Those must be taken steps to overcome, different areas from one region to another," he said.

The intervention to reduce the inflation rate, called Tito, could be done using a budget from the National Food Agency, the Ministry of Agriculture and unexpected budgets.

For regions that have succeeded in controlling inflation, the government through the Ministry of Finance will provide incentives. Meanwhile, regional heads who are unable to control inflation will receive rewards in the form of warnings, publications through the media to the decline in electability. Then specifically for officials (Pj) will receive threats of removal from office.

There are two kinds of regional heads. There are those who have the election results, some have the Acting and half have the Acting from 514 regencies/cities. And these Acting-Pjs, I include variables in the ability to handle inflation to be extended or replaced," he said.

One example of the Acting who has been removed due to not being able to control inflation is the Acting Mayor of Cimahi Dikdik Suratno Nugrahawan. Tito explained that the former Mayor of Didik was proven unable to control inflation in May, June, and July which made Cimahi the highest contributor to inflation twice on the island of Java.

"May has entered the top 10 (high inflation) regencies/cities throughout Java. East Java is 38 regencies/cities, Central Java 33, West Java if I'm not mistaken 29. Add more DKI Jakarta and Banten. This means that more than 100 regencies/cities enter, May, June, July. May is the top 10 rankings, even the highest in inflation in June is also the highest, in July, twice the number 1 is the highest," he said.