Sri Mulyani: The 2021 Pandemic Management Budget Equals 81 Jatiluhur Dam Or 4 New MRT

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

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said that the government has allocated a budget for handling COVID-19 for the 2021 period of IDR 130.03 trillion.

This amount consists of the procurement and vaccine program of Rp. 58.18 trillion, a budget for testing and tracing of Rp. 9.91 trillion, and a budget for treating COVID-19 patients and incentives for health workers of Rp. 61.94 trillion.

"The Rp130 trillion budget is the same as 7 times the budget for the construction of the Pekanbaru-Dumai toll road, or 34 times the construction of athletes' houses, or 4 times the MRT construction, or 81 times the construction of Jatiluhur. Can you imagine? " he said via his personal Instagram page @smindrawati, Wednesday, March 31.

The minister added that in the two APBN periods, this fiscal instrument has made extraordinary efforts to overcome the impact of the pandemic on various sectors.

"The APBN is working very hard to protect the people and the economy against COVID-19," he stressed.

To that end, the government continues to be committed to accelerating the recovery process, from a health, social and economic perspective.

"We continue to work hard to restore the economy and restore community activities while maintaining health discipline and reducing the spread and transmission of COVID-19," he said.

Most recently, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) confirmed that it had approved a loan from the Indonesian government worth 450 million US dollars or the equivalent of IDR 6.5 trillion (exchange rate of IDR 14,568) to assist PT Bio Farma in obtaining and distributing the COVID-19 vaccine.

The funds were originally intended to be used to procure at least 65 million additional doses of vaccine. Previously, ADB provided a US $ 3 million Asia Pacific Disaster Response Fund grant approved in April 2020 to help the Ministry of Health distribute essential medical equipment and supplies.

The government itself is committed to vaccinating 181.5 million people with COVID-19. This figure is one of the largest vaccination activities in the world.

Meanwhile, the budget for handling the pandemic is included in the National Economic Recovery (PEN) budget, which totals Rp.699.4 trillion for the fiscal year 2021.

This amount is distributed to several sectors, namely the health sector Rp. 176.3 trillion, support for MSMEs and cooperatives Rp. 184.8 trillion, priority programs Rp. 122.4 trillion, incentives for the business world Rp. 58.4 trillion, and social protection Rp. 157.4 trillion.

Meanwhile, the realization of the 2020 PEN fund is known to be IDR 579.8 trillion, or 83.4 percent of the total budgeted budget, which is IDR 695.2 trillion.