People Asked To Help Free Nutrition Eating Programs, Economists Hope DPD Chairperson Doesn't Talk About It

JAKARTA - Director of the Digital Economy Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios) Nailul Huda also responded to the discourse of the Chairman of the DPD RI Sultan Najamuddin who proposed that the public contribute to the free nutritious food budget (MBG).

According to Huda, the discourse was inappropriate, especially regarding the financing of government programs such as MBG which used the APBN, which partly came from public taxes.

"Now, the DPD (Chairman) has discussed inappropriate discourse and tends to be arbitrary. The government's program, including MBG, is financed through the APBN, there is a community tax component there. The community has helped this program. The mechanism is there," he told VOI, Thursday, January 15.

He emphasized that the government program funding mechanism has been clearly regulated, and if the community wants to contribute, it cannot be claimed as part of a government program.

"If people want to donate themselves, please, but cannot be claimed as a government program. The government's program must go through a regulatory mechanism," he explained.

According to Huda, the chairman of the DPD should understand the state's financial rules and not just talk about the program's funding mechanism.

"Every government program is financed by the state budget, and every APBN expenditure has its own mechanism. This is the chairman of the DPD asking the public for more contributions. The mechanism is wrong and he doesn't understand the rules of state finances," he said.

Previously, the Chairman of the DPD RI, Sultan Najamuddin, suggested that the public contribute to the free nutritious food budget (MBG).

Because, according to him, many Indonesian people are generous so that the government is not interested in financing the program.

This was conveyed by the Sultan in response to the MBG program which was considered difficult to take place in the long term if he only relied on the APBN.

"I see this, indeed the country must be under Pak Prabowo, Mas Gibran really wants this free nutritious eating program to be maximized. It's just that we all know that our budget is not, of course, not all of them will be used to eat free nutrition," said Sultan at the Parliament Complex, Tuesday, January 14.

"I still see that there is DNA from our country, DNA from the Indonesian people is generous, mutual cooperation, so why don't we take advantage of this too?", he continued.

These donations, according to the Sultan, can be done through zakat. So he said, the government does not work alone to realize this program.

"For example, how do we stimulate the general public to be involved in this free nutritious eating program. Among other things, yesterday I also thought why not our extraordinary zakat, we also want to involve there, that's one example. So that the government does not work alone with the existing budget, "said Sultan.

In fact, the Sultan admitted that he had conveyed his ideas to several ambassadors. He hopes that other countries will also support the free nutritious eating program in Indonesia.

"I have also conveyed with several ambassadors, I say please we have this country, our country has a mainstay program called a free nutritious meal. Please also if foreign countries also want to contribute. Well, yesterday we were also happy that Japan had started to join our support," he said.

"I want to say that this free nutritious eating program, even if this is a mainstay program from the executive or government, but we hope that the parliament will carry out all existing functions, ensuring that this program is actually running optimally. Not only from the existing APBN budget, because it must be very limited," concluded Sultan.