Support The Government To Formulate A Flexible And Accountable State Budget, Sri Mulyani: Thank You DPR

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati. (Photo: Ministry of Finance)

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said the structure of the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN) in the last two years has experienced significant adjustments compared to previous periods.

For this reason, he expressed his appreciation to the House of Representatives (DPR) as the government's partner in helping formulate a more aggressive state budget to reduce the impact of the pandemic.

“The APBN has undergone extraordinary adjustments in the face of pandemic turmoil. We are grateful to the DPR for helping to design the APBN to be flexible yet accountable, ”said Sri Mulyani in a seminar broadcast virtually from Semarang, Thursday, March 25.

Minister of Finance added that this flexibility is needed considering that state revenue will certainly decrease, both from the taxation sector and non-tax revenue. On the other hand, government spending continues to increase, particularly in the health sector, in the social sector, as well as support for economic recovery.

"In fact, in 2020 we together with the DPR have made two revisions to the State Budget with the total expenditure that has been completed of Rp. 2,589 trillion," he said.

In detail, the Minister of Finance explained that spending on the health sector allowed the government to buy COVID-19 test kits, which at that time were not widely available on the market. Then, the government also bears all the medical costs of patients affected by the pandemic to date.

"We also provide incentives for health workers, up to the national vaccination program that is currently being implemented. All of this would not have happened if the fiscal policy was not extraordinary, ”he explained.

For information, the health budget before the pandemic in the 2019 State Budget was recorded at Rp. 113 trillion. This value has shot up to nearly Rp. 300 trillion in the 2021 State Budget.

For information, in a press conference for our State Budget on Tuesday, March 23, Sri Mulyani revealed that state spending until the close of February 2021 reached IDR282.7 trillion, an increase of 1.2 percent from last year's realization.

"This total expenditure is 10.3 percent of the total state expenditure allocated for 2021, which amounts to Rp2,750 trillion," he said.

Meanwhile, in terms of state revenue, it is stated that it is IDR 219.2 trillion or 12.6 percent of the projected revenue this year.

The income realization actually increased from the 2020 period which amounted to IDR217.6 trillion. This means that the state income for the first two months of this year is better than the period before the 2020 pandemic.