Discourse On Customs And Excise Freeze Appears, What Is The Fate Of 16,000 DJBC Civil Servants?

JAKARTA - The discourse of freezing the Directorate General of Customs and Excise (DJBC) by the Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadives raises a big question mark about the fate of around 16,000 ASN on duty at the institution.

Minister of State Apparatus Empowerment and Bureaucratic Reform (PAN-RB) Rini Widyantini said that the suspension of DJBC ASN could be carried out according to regulations.

This refers to Law Number 20 of 2023 concerning State Civil Apparatus (ASN).

Even so, Rini admitted that his party needed to study the functions of ASN in DJBC before the freezing was carried out.

"If he (ASN) has a problem, it can be deactivated. But it's not necessarily (all problems), you have to check what the case is like first," he said at the Coordinating Ministry for Food, Jakarta, Wednesday, December 3.

Rini admitted that he had not met with the Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadivewa to discuss the discourse on freezing the customs.

"I haven't met Pak Purbaya. Of course I have to make sure of this," he said.

Previously, Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa stated that the Directorate General of Customs and Excise was at risk of being frozen due to unsatisfactory performance, both by state leaders and by the public.

This situation arose after various problems emerged to the public, including the absence of supervision at the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) airport and the case of the entry of 250 tons of illegal rice through Sabang, Aceh.

"We will clean it up. So Customs and Excise, I have called them, we have an internal meeting. We discuss it with them, I say this, the Customs image is not good in the media, in the community, in our highest leadership. So we have to fix it," he told the media crew, Thursday, November 27.

Purbaya said that he had asked President Prabowo Subianto to give one year to make improvements.

"I told them, I have asked the President for one year not to be disturbed first, give me time to improve Customs and Excise, because of serious threats," he said.

According to him, the government has also opened an option to submit customs and excise functions to a private Swiss company, Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS), as it was in the New Order era.

For information, at that time President Soeharto had frozen the Directorate General of Customs and Excise in 1985 due to rampant extortion and smuggling, and the condition lasted until 1995.

"If Customs and Excise cannot improve their performance and the public is still dissatisfied, Customs can be frozen, replaced with SGS. Like in the past," he said.

He emphasized that Customs and Excise employees already understand the risks, so they are now more eager to make improvements, one of the steps is to increase digitization in all Customs offices to prevent irregularities.

"Now the progress is quite good. I think next year it will be safe, meaning Customs will be able to work well and professionally," he said.

He reminded that there is a possibility that the Directorate General of Customs and Excise is frozen, which could have an impact on 16,000 employees.

"Because of this I said, if we fail to repair, then 16,000 Customs employees will be laid off. Customs and Excise people are smart and ready to change the situation," he explained.