Improve Water Infrastructure And Better Sanitation, Sri Mulyani Prepares Jumbo Funds

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani. (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the government is committed to significantly improving its finances for the better quality of water and sanitation infrastructure this year.

Sri Mulyani said the government had prepared a budget of IDR 423.4 trillion dedicated to infrastructure including clean water, sanitation and climate change impact mitigation.

In addition, Sri Mulyani said that the government for clean water subsidies had also prepared as much as Rp12.4 billion which was allocated to accelerate the availability of drinking water.

"Continue to build bridges and open access to clean water and sanitation is one of the Indonesian government's commitments in responding to this problem," Sri Mulyani said in an upload on her personal Instagram account @smindrawati, Tuesday, May 21.

According to Sri Mulyani, access to safe drinking water and sanitation is very important as a basic human right.

There are many empirical studies that show the direct impact of water on common welfare, especially for health, income, peace, social cohesion and environmental sustainability.

Furthermore, Sri Mulyani said that the world water crisis also demands a mature and sustainable financial strategy.

Therefore, in 2020, the world allocated USD 8.7 billion to achieve sustainable development goals, massive investments are urgently needed.

As for solving the problem, Sri Mulyani said that fiscal policy is the key and a significant part of the APBN is allocated to build and upgrade irrigation and sanitation facilities.

"Including increasing the capacity of local governments (Pemda) through fiscal decentralization to make it more appropriate to allocate their resources," he said.