Jokowi Calls There Are Areas Spending Stunting Budget For Official Travel And Meetings

President Joko Widodo (Photo: Doc. Antara)

President Joko Widodo said that there are areas that spend the stunting handling budget to finance official travel and meetings rather than solving more concrete problems.

Without mentioning the name of the region, Jokowi gave an example of an area that has a stunting handling budget of Rp. 10 billion. However, the budget used to buy protein food products can be consumed directly by the public.

"Talking about the budget, many are not true, for example there is a stunting budget of Rp. 10 billion, I'm trying to check to see what Rp. 10 billion is for. Don't imagine that this is bought by vegetable protein milk eggs. Let's see in detail. Last week I just checked," he said at the 2023 Internal Insight Coordination Meeting (Wasin) at the BPKP Office, East Jakarta, Wednesday, June 14.

"The official trip is Rp. 3 billion, meetings are Rp. 3 billion, strengthening the development of any bla bla Rp. 2 billion. What really buys eggs is not Rp. 2 billion. When will stunting be completed if the method is like this?," he continued.

Furthermore, Jokowi admitted to directly examining the budgets, including the small ones. This is because there are many non-optimal use of the budget in the government.

Therefore, Jokowi requested that the budget be effective, official travel and others to be pegged smaller than the budget used for public consumption product spending. Thus, the impact can be more concrete.

"If the Rp 10 billion is the budget, the others should be Rp2 billion, Rp8 billion is eggs, fish, meat, vegetables, given to stunting. The concrete is like that," he said.

Construction Of Office Centers And Travel

Not only that, Jokowi also highlighted that there were other projects that turned out to be inaccurate use of the budget.

Without mentioning the name of the region, Jokowi said, there are areas that use 80 center construction budgets for official travel.

The construction of the hall, to rehabilitate and build a hall, is clear. The budget is Rp. 1 billion. I saw this small, small. I should have seen that Rp. 1 billion, Rp. 900 million for rehabilitation, it should have been. But after checking properly, Rp. 734 million is honorarium, meeting, and official travel. Rp. 734 million. That is, 80 percent. This can no longer be done, ladies and gentlemen," he explained.

Jokowi reiterated that this is one of the tough tasks of BPKP to oversee the use of the budget.

"This is the task of BPKP, now the results must be orientation, direct the central area of BUMN, the ministry directs it to concrete so that it is productive," he said.