JAKARTA - Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani, said that the government had made adjustments related to the use of the budget in terms of protecting the public from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Minister of Finance, the state previously prioritized cash social assistance (BLT) schemes or basic goods as an economic cushion to maintain purchasing power. However, from now onwards, the use of the budget will be focused on strengthening energy subsidy posts, such as fuel, LPG, and electricity.
"So if in 2020, 2021, the domination of the recipients was targeted social assistance which was by name, by address, or by the number of the recipient of assistance, now in 2022, due to the spike in the price of social assistance subsidies, they have turned into subsidies in the form of goods, namely fuel, LPG, and electricity", she said when meeting the media crew virtually on Monday, March 28.
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The Minister of Finance explained that in the first two months of this year the number of energy subsidies had soared very high. This happened because of the impact of increasing commodity prices globally which made the selling value of various important energies soar.
"From the subsidies for fuel, LPG, and electricity, the budget has spent IDR 21.7 trillion", she said.
For information, this year's social assistance budget is included in the 2022 National Economic Recovery (PEN) fund for the community protection cluster of IDR 154.8 trillion. Meanwhile, the 2022 PEN itself amounts to IDR 455.62 trillion.
In addition to protecting the community in the 2022 PEN, there are two other clusters, namely health care of IDR 122.5 trillion and the cluster of strengthening economic recovery of IDR 178.3 trillion.
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