CPNS Plan Criticism Economist 2023: Political Factor, Dulang Simpati Ahead Of Election

JAKARTA Economic observer and public policy expert at the Narasi Institute, Achmad Nur Hidayat, responded to Menpan RB Abdullah Azwar Anas' plan to open a recruitment of prospective Civil Servants (CPNS) with a quota of 1 million people this year.

According to him, the discourse is opportunist because it is close to a large momentum, namely the 2024 democratic party.

More political factors are being carried out in a hurry to pursue the political moment of the 2024 election. The motive is politics so that the ruling party wins again because it gets sympathy from the millions of CPNS applicants," he said in a written statement, Wednesday, June 14.

Achmad explained that the recruitment of civil servants in 2023 was not in the government's planning during the 2023 RAPBN bribery. So, if the government changes it, it requires DPR approval and invites the question of whether the government wants its deficit to be above 3 percent in 2023.

He revealed, in 2022 shopping for regional civil servants is still the highest in regional spending. This is planned to be lowered, considering that until now the source of the regional revenue and expenditure budget (APBD) is still sourced from the central government budget through a regional transfer scheme (TKD).

"TKD is the main source of income for regional income (APBD) as large as 68 percent and in the expenditure area it is still dominated by personnel spending, which is 34 percent based on the 2022 State Budget report," he said.

Regarding the plan to add more civil servants in 2023, he continued, especially since the largest allocation is in the regional allocation, it will be very confusing whether the regional government spending structure which is dominated by paying employee salaries wants to be increased again.

"The Ministry of Finance stated that it had reduced 3,586 employees. Therefore, the reduction in the number of employees could save Rp902.69 billion in 2020-2023," he added.

Achmad added that the government with a limited 2023 State Budget, plus the potential to increase the burden of social subsidies, should make civil servants efficient. In fact, certain routine and mechanical jobs can be replaced with robotic technology so that personnel spending, both central and regional employees, does not become a burden of development in the future.

"The moratorium on accepting CPNS is that the government has temporarily suspended acceptance on the grounds of spending on employees who burden the state budget so that the state budget cannot be sustainable," he said.

"Then what about the 2023 new CPNS acceptance, the burden of the state budget from employees is not a problem, or is this issue forced to be ignored for the sake of political interests in 2024?" concluded Achmad.