Minister Of Home Affairs Ultimatum Local Government Immediately Disburses NHPD For The 2024 Pilkada

MAKASSAR - Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian gave ultimatums to local governments, both provincial governments and district/city governments to immediately disburse the regional election budget according to the draft of the regional grant agreement (NPHD) until the deadline of July 9, 2024.

"If until July 9, we don't transfer, we will send a team to the area, what is the problem. If there is no money or money being withheld, deliberately detained, we will force it to be immediately disbursed to the KPU, Bawaslu and security forces," said Titdi Makassar, South Sulawesi. reported by ANTARA, Wednesday, June 26.

The Minister of Home Affairs believes that simultaneous regional elections will be held even though currently funds are still constrained.

"If there is no budget, we will ask the Ministry of Finance to send regional rights funds to obtain transfer funds, the DAU will be accelerated," he explained.

This means that the special allocation funds (DAU) which are usually transferred every three months to the regions, said Tito, can be accelerated in the next few months so that some of them can be used during the election and some are used for operations during the pilkada stage.

According to him, the most important role of local governments is budget problems, because if there is no election budget, of course the regional elections will not work.

Tito also said that his party had sent a Circular Letter of the Minister of Home Affairs Number 900.1.9.1/433/9J on January 24, 2023 regarding the readiness of the 2024 regional election budget.

"I ask all regional heads to coordinate with the regional KPU, regional Bawaslu, especially the National Police security apparatus to calculate, submit budget proposals, and after that the budget is negotiated," he said.

According to Tito, if the budget is too high or too low, it must be discussed together. After agreeing, then an NHPD agreement is made which is a commitment to the local government's agreement to provide the regional election budget.

"After that, it was realized in two stages, namely in the 2023 APBD it was 40 percent and 2024 it was 60 percent. Why is it divided into two? Because there are several regions where the regional finances are weak," said Tito.

Therefore, said Tito, this depends on the central government through its DAU transfer, because there are regions that have low regional revenue (PAD), so of course they rely on central funds, especially expansion areas that are not yet strong PAD.