The Minister Of Home Affairs Calls Jokowi The Father Of Inflation Control

JAKARTA - Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian said that President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is the right person to be said to be the 'Father of Inflation Control'.

"If Puang (the title of the Bugis community) conveyed that I am Mr. Inflation, actually Mr. Inflation is Mr. Jokowi," Tito said quoting Antara.

He explained that this was due to Jokowi's order in September 2022, when the figure was 6 percent.

Tito conveyed this in response to the statement of the Minister of Agriculture (Mentan) Andi Amran Sulaiman who said that the Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian was the 'Father of Inflation Control'.

According to Tito, the right person to be pinned as Mr. Indonesian Inflation is President Joko Widodo. He admitted that he only carried out the tasks given by the Head of State so that he could reduce inflation from 6 percent as of September 2022, now to 2.84 percent as of May 2024.

"And we indeed target inflation control at 2.5 percent plus minus 1 percent, meaning a maximum of 3.5 percent and a minimum of 1.5 percent," said Tito.

He said that Indonesia would not be able to achieve 0 percent inflation, because Indonesia as a production country, not like Singapore, which is a consumer country that does not have rice fields and farmers.

He explained how Indonesia's inflation could be reduced by 2.84 percent. Initially in September 2022, when inflation was 6 percent, Tito admitted that he was summoned by President Jokowi.

When summoned by the Head of State, Tito explained that the steps that must be taken are that the regions must be controlled and must not be silent.

Because of his knowledge of dealing with inflation, Tito continued, according to Harvard, there is only one instrument and applies throughout the world, namely bank interest control.

When there is high inflation, interest rates are raised, once interest rates are raised, production will decrease, demand will also decrease, inflation will automatically drop. But when inflation is too low, interest will also be humiliated so that demand will rise. The science is, "said Tito.

However, Tito admitted that the explanation was not approved by the President at that time. Even the Head of State immediately instructed the Minister of Home Affairs to deal with inflation, such as overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

"Pak Jokowi said no, we use other knowledge, COVID-19 knowledge. All over the world, no one is a COVID expert, because the last one is the pandemic is in 1927, which means more than 100 years," said Tito.

The President then ordered the Minister of Home Affairs to map out which hospitals were full, areas with the most deaths, until the highest positive cases were categorized as red.

Meanwhile, areas outside the category are marked with yellow and green. For those who are yellow, they can move, but there are still a number of restrictions while green can move freely.

This policy was taken as a step to balance the handling of COVID-19 with economic control. Because there is a country that is fast and has succeeded in dealing with COVID-19 but the economy has collapsed.

This knowledge was then asked by Jokowi to be applied to the handling of inflation. And the President also asked all stakeholders to check each region using data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

Through this mechanism, Tito continued, inflation control could be at 2.84 percent and even in May 2024 the first time since September 2022 on a monthly basis there was a deflation of minus 0.03 percent.

"Usually food, drinks, tobacco are always red. Only in May 2024, food, drinks, tobacco that can always be red is actually deflation of 0.29 percent," he said.

However, Tito admitted that this achievement was also the hard work of Minister of Agriculture Andi Amran Sulaiman, Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas) Arief Prasetyo Adi, and President Director of Perum Bulog Bayu Krisnamurthi who worked in the food sector.

"So, actually Mr. Inflation is Mr. Jokowi, but actually the Minister of Agriculture, the Head of the Food Agency and the Director of Bulog actually. We (Kemendagri) only help coordinate," said Tito.

Minister of Agriculture (Mentan) Andi Amran Sulaiman said that the Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian was the 'Father of Inflation Control'.

"He (the Minister of Home Affairs) is the best inflation controller we know. I don't overdo it if we call him (the Minister of Home Affairs) the 'Father of Indonesian Inflation Control'," said the Minister of Agriculture on the sidelines of the Coordination Meeting for the Expansion of Plant Areas and the Signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Minister of Home Affairs.

According to him, the performance of the Minister of Home Affairs is very good because it is able to control inflation to reach 2.84 percent.

Today we can smile because of our inflation. Currently Argentina has 120 percent inflation, 70 percent Turkey, America 6 percent and several other countries have been under pressure because of uncontrolled inflation. So, it's not too much if he is the Father of Indonesian Inflation Control," said Amran.