Ombudsman: Need Higher Legal Umbrellas To Set Subsidized Fertilizer Policy

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Member of the Indonesian Ombudsman Yeka Hendra Fatika stated that a higher legal umbrella is needed to regulate subsidized fertilizer policies to solve the problems as a whole.

Yeka after the Workshop 'Landangan Opportunities and Direction of Fertilizer Subsidy Policy in the Red and White Cabinet in the Context of Realizing Food Self-Sufficiency' with the FEM IPB University in Bogor City, quoted by Antara, Monday, December 2, said that at least the legal umbrella has a stronger reference.

Currently, the subsidized fertilizer distribution regulations are in the Regulation of the Minister of Agriculture Number 1 of 2024 which is valid from April 17, 2024. Permentan Number 1 of 2024 is an amendment to Permentan Number 10 of 2022 concerning Procedures for Determination of Allocation and Highest Retail Price of Subsidized Fertilizers in the Agricultural Sector.

Yeka said the Ombudsman views the need for subsidized fertilizer regulations to be regulated in Presidential Regulations.

The Ombudsman, who opened a consultation forum for the distribution and redeeming of subsidized fertilizers, once found data inaccuracies in the electronic system of the Definitive Plan for Group Needs (e-RDKK). For example, individuals who are not farmers are still found but registered in the e-RDKK, there are multiple data of farmers registered in the e-RDKK, un updated data, small farmers are not registered in the e-RDKK, NIK farmers in e-RDK do not match population data, and a large amount of homogeneous land area data on e-RDKK data.

Meanwhile, in the diversion of subsidized fertilizers, the Ombudsman found preparedness for the implementation of Farmer Cards simultaneously. As with the lack of optimal distribution of Farmer Cards and the readiness of supporting infrastructure such as EDC machines and internet networks.

Yeka said the Ministry of Agriculture has progressively followed and followed up on suggestions or corrective actions from the Ombudsman. He also appreciated this.

"This progress is hoped that the Ombudsman will be able to become a breath of fresh air in solving the problems of subsidized fertilizers that are systematic in nature," he said.

He also provided input, among others, first, related to data collection, according to him, there needs to be a special institution or institution that is responsible for data collection.

"Because until now no single institution has been responsible for the quality of data collection. So there must be, for example, data collection officers and it is assigned and it gets incentives from the government," he said.

Second, Yeka said, related to improving incentives for distributors and kiosks, because so far the amount of incentives for both of them for 13 years has not changed even though inflation continues to increase every year.

"This is still at Rp50 per kilo for distributors, Rp75 per kilo for kiosks. The Ombudsman assesses that this small incentive is one of the factors of various kinds of misappropriation so that in the context of minimization, the incentives for distributors and kiosks must be increased," he said.

Third, he said, strengthening was carried out under supervision. Because in subsidies it will definitely cause price disparities.

"There are already supervisory institutions, but they have not been supported by a mature program that oversees the issue of subsidized fertilizers from upstream to downstream. The supervision program follows up on various subsidized fertilizer problems," Yeka said.

The fourth, according to Yeka, stopped various practices that resulted in many extension workers and service officers being the object of examination from the prosecutor's office as a result of this data collection problem.

Data collection and padu data mechanisms need to be displayed on a dashboard at the data and information centers.

"I hope that the Presidential Decree leads there and with that I believe subsidized fertilizer services will develop and be good," said Yeka.