Didik Rachbini Criticizes Discourse On Shopping For Alutsista Rp. 1,700 Trillion: Unreasonable, There Are Still Many Unemployed And Poor People

JAKARTA - Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) senior economist Didik J. Rachbini responded to the Ministry of Defense's plan to spend US$124 billion or equivalent to Rp.

According to him, the discourse on the defense and security budget is beyond reasonable.

"The momentum is wrong because there is the COVID-19 crisis, it is not feasible because the state budget is dying and the debt terms are unreasonable," he said in writing as quoted by VOI on Thursday, June 3.

Didik added that the pandemic had undermined many social pillars and was very concerning, so it needed more support than doubling the budget for defense and security.

“The poverty rate rose very high because the production system collapsed. Open unemployment increased from 5 percent to about 8 percent. Underemployment is also very large considering that economic growth is still negative,” he said.

Therefore, the man who is also listed as the Chancellor of Paramadina University considered it inappropriate for the large budget to be submitted in a very large amount and drain the budget for social, education, health, regional and so on.

"If this budget is approved by Commission 1, then the people's representatives do not know themselves and do not measure appropriateness with the current state of concern," he stressed.

Didik noted that until 2022 the DPR does not have the right to budget anymore according to the Perpu and the Law, so it cannot change the number of one rupiah from what the government has proposed. This is another misguided problem that violates the basic law where the DPR's budget rights are amputated,” he explained.

Furthermore, this senior economist at Indef revealed that the total debt from the state budget has reached IDR 6,361 trillion.

Then, the debts of banking and non-banking SOEs that will surely be borne by the state if they fail to pay are not less than IDR 2,143 trillion rupiah. So he estimates the current total public debt to reach Rp8,504 trillion.

"I estimate that at the end of the period the government will bequeath more than Rp. 10,000 trillion to the next president," he added.

Didik also expressed his concern about the state of the state budget which is considered to have been 'rushed up'.

“Our economy bears a heavy burden. The possibility of a crisis could occur through this APBN door. I just remind you, the combination of the problem of the state budget plus declining public confidence has the potential to cause a crisis. Therefore, the crisis must be prevented by reinforcing the state budget so that it is careful in its planning and returns to growth above a moderate level," said Didik.

As previously reported, the Ministry of Defense plans to purchase the TNI's main weapon system (alutsista) for a period of 5 Strategic Plans or 25 years, which amounted to US$ 124 billion or equivalent to Rp. 1.773 trillion which was revealed to the public. The plan is contained in the draft Presidential Regulation on Alpalhankam for 2020-2024.