Minister of Finance Purbaya Questions the Ministry of Transportation Regarding Ship Taxes, Threatens to Cut the Budget

JAKARTA - Finance Minister Purbaya alluded to the weak coordination between ministries in handling foreign ship taxes. He said the Ministry of Transportation had not given a clear answer, even though business actors had complained about the problem.

"If that is the case, the Transportation must inform us. Yesterday at the hearing, they were not ready to give a clear answer," said Purbaya at the Presidential Palace Complex, Wednesday (28/1).

According to him, the complaints came from the business world because they felt there was no level playing field. They pay taxes abroad, while here they are considered not optimally collected. Purbaya emphasized that if the information is conveyed quickly, the Ministry of Finance can immediately follow up. He also admitted that he did not know the details of the conditions on the ground.

He said debottlenecking sessions would continue to be held to open real obstacles. Problems often arise between ministries, between the government and businesses, to business actors. "Not on paper like OSS. In the field there are many difficult cases," he said.

On the internal side, the Minister of Finance Purbaya prepared a major evaluation at the Directorate General of Taxes. He admitted that he would carry out a wide-scale rotation of officials so that performance would increase. "I'll mess it up again so that the good ones go up," he said.

Purbaya emphasized that if coordination did not work and the authority of supervision was not carried out, the ministry's budget could be cut. According to him, cross-agency cooperation is important so that issues like this can be resolved quickly.