Deputy Minister Ensures Budget Efficiency Is Not Affected By Employee Reduction

JAKARTA - Deputy Minister of Agriculture (Wamentan), Sudaryono, ensures that the current government's budget efficiency will not have an impact on employee reduction.

In addition, Sudaryono also ensured that the efficiency of this budget would not reduce the portion of food assistance. This includes no scholarships being eliminated.

"I can confirm that none of this efficiency has been laid off, no social assistance has been reduced, no scholarships have been removed. All of these good programs are not reduced," he said in an official statement, Friday, February 20.

Sudaryono emphasized that the results of this budget evaluation will later be allocated for the construction of schools, improvement of agricultural infrastructure, and increasing investment through the Anagata Nusantara Power Agency (Danantara).

Furthermore, said Sudaryono, the budget that has been collected from official travel, for example, which reaches IDR 44 trillion per year, could be diverted to the construction of schools and the agricultural sector.

"Well, by reducing it by half, or 22 trillion, we can improve schools. Why? Because the President has identified from all of these budget items, there is a budget that benefits one ministry. After checking there, a lot of budgets are withheld," he said.

According to Sudaryono, many of the budgets that were previously ineffective and were not on target, such as the budget for stunting alleviation did not reach its goals.

The budget, according to him, is often channeled to other irrelevant posts, so efficiency steps are needed to withstand unproductive expenses.

"The title of the cancellation of the post, as soon as the money is checked, I don't know where. So a lot of budgets are detained for 1 billion and 2 billion at the ATK, etc. so this efficiency does not mean entering the president's pocket but is diverted to book quotas, adding seeds and fertilizers," he said.