Sri Mulyani's Subordinates Reveal A Surprising Thing: All State-Owned Assets Will Not Enough To Pay Government Debt Approaching IDR 7,000 Trillion

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

JAKARTA - The Director-General of State Assets of the Ministry of Finance Rionald Silaban reported that the total value of state property (BMN) until the end of 2020 was IDR 6,585 trillion.

"The amount of BMN reflects 59.3 percent of all state assets amounting to IDR 11,098 trillion", he said in a webinar on Monday, November 15.

According to Rionald, the value of the assets which reached tens of thousands of trillions turned out to have increased by more than IDR 4,000 trillion thanks to the BMN revaluation strategy carried out in 2018. For information, asset revaluation is a step to revaluate assets owned by an entity (ministry/institution) so that it reflects the current value of assets.

But do you know that the total value of state property, which amounted to IDR 6,585 trillion, is still less than the current amount of government debt?

From data released by the Ministry of Finance in the October 2021 edition of our APBN, it is stated that the debt position until the closing of the third quarter has reached IDR 6,711.52 trillion, equivalent to 41.38 of gross domestic product (GDP). This amount is clearly higher than the BMN's valuation according to current data.

According to VOI records, the value of government debt, which is close to IDR 7,000 trillion, is the latest level so far. The reason is that in the past one year the amount of debt is still perched in the range of IDR 5,000 trillion to slightly over IDR 6,000 trillion.

However, when referring to the State Finance Law No. 17 of 2003 and the APBN Law, the value of the government's obligations is still considered safe because it is below the maximum 60 percent of GDP.

To note, the Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani, had said in a working meeting with the House of Representatives Budget Board that the government had paid interest on the debt of IDR 317.89 trillion in 2020. This figure is the yield value that must be met by the state for the debt burden of IDR 6,080.08 trillion.

Investigate a calibration, last year's total debt increased by no less than IDR 1,293.5 trillion from or 27.2 percent from 2019.

This also made the interest expense in 2020 swell from 2019 which was stated at IDR 277.23 trillion.