Ask The Governor To Accept The Cut Of Transfer Funds, Minister Of State Secretary Ungkit MBG Program: It's Also Enjoyed By Regions

Minister of State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi. (Photo: ANTARA)

Minister of State Secretary (Mensesneg) Prasetyo Hadi asked regional heads to understand the central government's policy regarding cutting transfer funds to the regions (TKD).

According to him, the cuts made do not mean that the regions are disadvantaged, because some of the funds are diverted to fund national programs that are also enjoyed by people in all provinces.

Prasetyo's statement came after a number of regional heads expressed concern over the reduced portion of TKD from the central government to the Ministry of Finance office, some time ago.

"We provide a common understanding, a joint explanation that in connection with the issue of transfers to this area, now it is divided into two, transfers to direct regions and transfers to indirect regions," Prasetyo told reporters, quoted on Saturday, October 11.

Prasetyo emphasized that this efficiency policy is part of restructuring state spending to focus more on national priority programs.

He then gave an example, in the APBN allocation, some transfer funds were not directly used to finance national programs such as Free Nutrition Food (MBG) which became President Prabowo Subianto's flagship program.

"For example, a free nutritious food program, if it is calculated from the budget in the APBN, it will be more or less in one year running, next year it will be Rp335 trillion. Now this is also enjoyed by all regions, right," he said.

When asked about the objections of several governors who felt they could not carry out their political promises because their fiscal space was narrow, Prasetyo considered it a momentum to improve budget planning between the center and the regions.

"Yes, that is what is given understanding and explanation. Now that we are jointly between the central government, provincial governments, later local governments, let's improve our budget governance so that we design all of our programs that really have an impact on the interests of the community," explained Prasetyo.

For information, the TKD allocation in the 2026 RAPBN is planned at IDR 692,995 trillion, or a decrease of around 24.7 percent compared to the previous year which reached IDR 919.9 trillion. This means that there is a cut of around IDR 226.9 trillion.