The Government Still Responsive To The Cost Of COVID-19 Patients, As Of September, Rp23 Trillion Has Been Paid

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The government through the Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) emphasized that the state still bears the coverage costs of COVID-19 patients.

Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said the amount of budget disbursed by the government was increasingly sloping in line with the level of more controlled pandemic spread.

"The payment of claims for COVID-19 patients until September 16 is IDR 23.8 trillion," he said when giving a presentation to the media crew some time ago.

According to the Minister of Finance, the funds were taken from the allocation of PC-PEN 2023 clusters for handling health. In addition to paying for patient care costs, the health cluster also includes incentives for health workers (nakes) of IDR 2.6 trillion, procurement of vaccines of IDR 1.7 trillion, incentives for taxation of IDR 1.5 trillion, and APBD support for handling the pandemic of IDR 8.2 trillion.

"The realization of the health cluster has amounted to Rp38.4 trillion or 31.4 percent of the ceiling of Rp122.5 trillion," he said.

Meanwhile, the other two clusters are community protection with absorption of Rp. 100 trillion (64 percent of the ceiling of Rp. 154.7 trillion) and clusters of strengthening economic recovery which were realized Rp. 76.4 trillion (42 percent of the ceiling of Rp. 178.3 trillion).

Thus, overall PC-PEN 2023 absorbed IDR 214.9 trillion or equivalent to 47.2 percent of the budget allocation of IDR 455.6 trillion.

In the midst of the risk of escalated global uncertainty, the role of the State Budget as a carbon shock needs to be maintained so that it functions optimally. The PC-PEN program will continue to be responsive and anticipatory," closed the Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani.