Sri Mulyani Shares The Story Of Early Handling The Pandemic: The Country Can Be Ruined, But There Are No Problems About Handling Funds

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani told about the steps to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the early stages of handling it. In his speech, the state must act quickly by providing a budget to save the people.

"Anyway, anything related to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no problem with funds, funds must be provided. Because this pandemic will destroy everything, so we will increase our budget,” he said while speaking at the Tempo Chat forum which was broadcast virtually, Tuesday, December 28.

According to the Minister of Finance, one of the most important things in handling the pandemic is the provision of vaccines. For this reason, the government is said to have made various efforts to be able to get a vaccine right away if the right formula has been found.

So far, the problem has not been resolved. The next challenge is how to carry out the vaccination process for the Indonesian population.

"The President has instructed that the implementation of vaccination can be carried out quickly by mobilizing all efforts, including the deployment of TNI-Polri personnel and BKKBN midwives as vaccine injectors," he said.

In this case again, the State Budget provides support by placing a budget in order to facilitate this vaccination program.

"That's why we continue to do what is called flexibility from the state budget, but remain accountable. Because what we are facing is not necessarily one time in 100 years, and not everything can be controlled," he continued.

Meanwhile, for other health sectors, the government has taken the initiative to cover the costs of testing-tracing and claims for treating COVID-19 patients at referral hospitals. In addition, medicine and vitamins are also provided for self-isolated patients.

The impact of the pandemic has also hit the economic sector. In a situation where people's mobility is limited, the government has finally disbursed a number of social assistances.

“This has resulted in increased budget expenditures for these priority programs. So, like it or not, there has to be a budget reallocation that will even occur four times in 2021 with the aim of giving priority to the provision of a budget for handling Covid and recovering the national economy," he stressed.

Although the budget is managed flexibly, the Minister of Finance emphasized that accountability for budget management must always be maintained. Good governance in building good governance is a clause that should not be ruled out in budget execution.

"So this episode (the COVID-19 pandemic) provides extraordinary lessons for the government, yes, for the government, for the people, and for the business world," closed the Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani.