Textile Entrepreneurs Call The Poor Performance Of Customs And Excise The Cause Of Mass Layoffs

JAKARTA - The Association of Indonesian Filament Filament Serat and Benang Producers (APSyFI) denied the statement of the Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani who said that the rampant layoffs of mass textile workers were caused by dumping practices abroad.

Chairman of the Association of Indonesian Filament Filament Filament Rate and Benang Producers (APSyFI) Redma Gita Wirawasta said the statement from Sri Mulyani was an effort to divert issues to cover up the failure to monitor the performance of the Ministry of Defense's Directorate General of Customs and Excise.

"We can see with the naked eye how a lot of people in Customs and Excise are involved and openly play the mode of importing wholesale/cubation with their authority in determining the import of the red or green route at the port," said Redma in a written statement received by VOI, Thursday, June 20.

Instead, his party accused the Directorate General of Customs and Excise of the Ministry of Finance as one of the main causes of the storm of termination of employment (PHK) and the closure of a number of companies in the last two years.

In this regard, Redma revealed allegations of illegal imports as reflected in the difference in data on the trade map showing unrecorded import gaps from China continue to increase in 2021 by USD 2.7 billion to USD 2.9 billion in 2022 and is estimated at USD 4 billion in 2023.

On the other hand, Redma regrets the government's attitude through Customs and Excise along with its import mafia relations which make container buildup at the port to force the government to relax imports through the Regulation of the Minister of Trade (Permendag) Number 8 of 2024.

"Here, it seems that Mrs. Sri (Mulyani) defends Customs and blames other ministries for issuing regulations for controlling imports, even though this is an order from the President (Joko Widodo) on October 6, 2023," he said.

According to Redma, the import mafia involving individuals in Customs and Excise has penetrated various levels, ranging from central officials in charge of securing from the policy side to regional officials and officers in the field as their executors.

"That's why all efforts to propose to improve the system have been rejected. Our Customs and Excise inspection system is far behind Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, which implement the IT and AI Scanner systems," he said.

Furthermore, on the one hand, Redma acknowledged and agreed on Sri Mulyani's statement regarding the dumping practices carried out by China because the conditions there were oversupply which was very large.

However, on the other hand, Redma felt strange when there was dumping practice, but the extension of the textile safeguard that had been recommended by the Minister of Trade (Mendag) actually stalled at Sri Mulyani's desk for more than a year.

"But, we are waiting for what Mrs. Sri will do in dealing with the storm of layoffs in this sector. Because in the last two years, three letters have been sent by API and APSYFI to meet the Minister of Finance and the Director General of Customs and Excise. But, there was absolutely no response," he added.