Didik Rachbini: Jokowi Will Leave IDR 10,000 Trillion In Debt To The Next President Of Indonesia
JAKARTA - Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) senior economist Didik J. Rachbini predicts that the leadership of Joko Widodo (Jokowi) will leave a debt of IDR 10,000 trillion to the next Indonesian president.
The debt is a combination of government debt and debt of state-owned enterprises (BUMN). The details are that government debt is recorded at IDR 6,361 trillion as of February 2021.
Then, BUMN debt reached IDR 2,140 trillion as of the third quarter of 2020. Meanwhile, the state-owned company debt consists of non-financial BUMN debt of IDR 1,141 trillion and BUMN financial IDR 999 trillion. Thus, the total debt of the government and BUMN was recorded at IDR 8,501 trillion.
"The administration has not finished yet. When it is finished, it is estimated that it will be Rp10 thousand trillion in debt in the APBN," he said in a virtual discussion, Wednesday, March 24.
Didik said that the debt trend during President Jokowi's leadership grew very rapidly compared to during the reign of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). He said, at the end of SBY's term, government debt was recorded at IDR 2,700 trillion and BUMN debt IDR 500 trillion.
"Within 5-6 years, the debt for decades was bypassed more than 2 times," he said.
Furthermore, Didik assessed that in this second term of leadership, Jokowi was less responsible for public decisions. One of them is about debt.
"So, this is a strong debt regime now, I call it the ruler of the debt king," he said.
Didik also highlighted the weak role of the House of Representatives (DPR) in the preparation of the state budget, so that debts sped out of control of parliamentarians. Didik assess that currently, the people's representatives can no longer do anything.
"This is a great achievement and this needs to be observed. Why is the DPR not doing anything? Because the executive power has moved to the legislature. The DPR is already weak like the New Order era," he said.