The Minister Of Home Affairs Denies That The New Normal Video Contest Wasted State Money

JAKARTA - The Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Tito Karnavian denied that the video competition entitled 'Regional Innovation in a New Normal Order' was a waste of state money. According to him, the Rp168 billion prize competition was held so that each region competes to prepare for a new normal phase in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"If there is an issue this is to waste money, no. This is an incentive fund allocated to the regions," said Tito during a working meeting with Commission II of the Indonesian Parliament at the DPR RI Building, Senayan, Central Jakarta, Wednesday, June 24.

The prize money with a total value of Rp. 168 billion for the 84 winning regions, he said, was not allocated to regional heads. The money, continued Tito, was included as regional incentive funds which were transferred directly by the Ministry of Finance to increase the regional budget for the winning regions.

"What is clear (prize money) is included in the APBD program and it can also be used to deal with COVID and its impacts, including stimulus," he said.

Furthermore, the former National Police Chief explained that the competition was carried out as a form of precondition before the imposition of new norms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said that the video competition had been carried out fairly because each field was divided into four clusters.

"Divided into four clusters. Provinces compete with provisions, cities compete between cities, districts compete between districts, borders compete with borders. There are four clusters of regional governments and seven sectors that are contested," he said.

The seven sectors that are competed for are the modern market sector, hotels, tourist attractions, restaurants, to the transportation sector.

Previously, the Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri) held a competition entitled 'Regional Innovation in a New Normal Order'. In this competition, local governments were asked to make a simulation video protocol in the new normal phase during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government disbursed a budget of Rp. 168 billion for the 84 winning regional governments in the form of Regional Incentive Funds (DID). The first winner gets IDR 3 billion, the second winner IDR 2 billion, and the third winner IDR 1 billion.

Various parties criticized this competition. They consider a competition that disburses such a large amount of budget as unnecessary in this era of the COVID-19 pandemic. University of Indonesia Public Policy Researcher Defny Holidin is one of them.

According to him, apart from being unnecessary, this kind of competition was actually dangerous. This is because competitions can make local governments shift their focus from real efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19 to artificial efforts.

"I disagree because the Ministry of Home Affairs initiative could be misleading. In the sense that regional governments can shift their focus from real efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19 to artificial efforts. Which does not necessarily represent the real situation," Defny said when contacted by VOI, Tuesday, June 22.

Epidemiologist from Australia's Griffith University Dicky Budiman also regretted the use of such large funds only to provide prizes for winning regions. According to him, this Rp168 billion prize should be used for other things.

Dicky even questioned, when a region was declared victorious and received a prize according to the competition rules, whether the money would really be used to deal with the pandemic in that region.

Instead of wasting the budget only on competition prizes, Dicky suggested that the budget could be used to increase the procurement of real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and reagents. "So that our testing coverage is increased and maintained," he said.