Deputy Minister Of Finance Suahasil Flashback How State Finances Respond To COVID-19 Early Last Year

Deputy Minister of Finance Suahasil Nazara. (Photo: screenshot of the Indonesian Institute of Accountants Youtube)

JAKARTA - Deputy Minister of Finance (Wamenkeu) Suahasil Nazara told how the government prepared state finances in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic that began to hit Indonesia at the beginning of last year.

According to the Deputy Minister of Finance, the government immediately thought of steps to deal with the pandemic which will certainly affect the economic situation. This he calls demands policy breakthroughs that are responsive but still adaptive.

"The government knew at that time that all components of national income would decline, consumption would have negative growth, investment would be negative, exports and imports would also be the same, so the only thing that had to be at the forefront and which should be the bumper of economic activity from the current state of affairs was This economy is government spending," he said in a webinar organized by the Indonesian Accounting Association (IAI) on Wednesday, December 8.

The government then made efforts to spend in an integrated manner in the PEN program. The Deputy Minister of Finance said that the PEN program includes many policy breakthroughs, the main of which is to deal with the pandemic and restore the national economy.

"Another breakthrough made by the government is to build synergy with Bank Indonesia as the monetary authority to buy government bonds from the primary market in order to help finance," he said.

He also emphasized that all policies carried out by the government had been approved by the DPR and were given approval in the form of Law No. 2 of 2020 which became the basis of the entire recovery process and government work procedures for the recovery of the national economy.

“I want to convey this as an illustration that in the future we need more good breakthroughs, breakthroughs that can keep Indonesia moving towards prosperity within the existing good governance corridor. Everything is for the sake of continuing to encourage economic recovery conditions, “explained the Deputy Minister of Finance.

According to VOI records, in the 2020 period, the PEN budget was allocated Rp. 695.2 trillion with a realization of Rp. 575.85 trillion.

Then, in 2021, the PEN ceiling will be IDR 699 trillion. However, in the middle of this year the government decided to increase the budget to Rp744.77 trillion in line with the increase in cases due to the delta variant. Meanwhile, the realization of PEN 2021 until October 15 is IDR 428.21 trillion.

Meanwhile, based on data released by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, it is known that the allocation of funds for the National Economic Recovery Program for the 2022 period is IDR 321.2 trillion.