Palace Affirms Minister Must Report First Staff Recruitment

JAKARTA - Presidential Chief of Staff AM Putranto assessed that every minister or head of institution must first report special staff who will be sworn in to the Palace.

Putranto's statement was a respoon after the Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs, Meutya Hafid, inaugurated Rudi Sutanto as Special Staff to the Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs for Strategic Communication on Monday (13/1).

"Yes (it is mandatory to report) please. You can't do it carelessly," said Putranto at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta as reported by ANTARA, Wednesday, January 15.

Putranto said that his party has the authority to recruit personnel at the Presidential Staff Office.

However, the staff recruitment must also be reported through the State Secretariat (Setneg).

"At KSP I recruited personnel separately, specifically I was given the authority in the State Secretariat like that. In the State Secretariat, there was the same thing for Mr. Rudi Sutanto and so on, the decision was made by them," said Putranto.

Rudi Sutanto was inaugurated as a special staff along with two others, namely Aida Rezalina as Special Staff to the Minister for Inter-Institutional Relations and Strategic Programs, and Raline Rahmat Shah as Special Staff to the Minister for Global Partnerships and Digital Education.

Social activist Rudi Valinka is said to be Rudi Sutanto, who was recently appointed by the Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs, Meutya Hafid, as Special Staff to the Minister for Strategic Communications at the Ministry of Communication and Industry.

Based on the information gathered, Rudi Valinka is a social activist on the Twitter platform, which has now changed X, with the @kunawa account. The inauguration of Rudi Sutanto was also widely discussed by netizens considering the tweets by the author of the book "A Man Called #Ahok" reaped the pros and cons when viewed from their digital footprint.

Previously, Minister Meutya admitted that he did not know about Rudi Valinka, who was said to be Rudi Sutanto.

"I don't know. Rudi Sutanto, who I know, Rudi Sutanto, so I don't want to speculate about what Rudi Sutanto is," said Meutya when giving a press statement at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Monday (13/1).