After Jokowi And Sri Mulyani, BPS Participated In 'shouting' At The Regional Government To Immediately Spend The Regional Budget

Head of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) Suhariyanto. (Photo: Capture the Youtube BPS screen)

JAKARTA - Head of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) Suhariyanto said that the realization of government consumption showed a positive signal with a 2.96 percent growth year-on-year (yoy) in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same period in 2021.

However, he sees that the positive trend could actually be better if the regional government (Pemda) participates in realizing APBD spending more aggressively.

"This can be seen from the contraction of expenditures for goods, services and personnel expenditures from the regional budget," he said in a virtual press conference, Wednesday, May 5.

According to Suhariyanto, a number of regional governments must act quickly to accelerate the use of their respective budgets in accordance with the direction of the central government in order to boost the economy from the consumption side.

"Yesterday, President Jokowi reminded the regions to immediately spend APBD, and if this can be realized, government consumption can help economic recovery," he said.

In detail, the Head of BPS explained that government consumption expenditure grew mainly due to an increase in the realization of expenditure for goods and services as well as spending on social assistance (APBN) by 40.51 percent and 16.52 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, personnel spending contracted 2.01 percent in line with the budget refocusing policy during the current pandemic.

Then, the increase in goods and services spending, both on collective and individual consumption expenditures, mostly occurred in non-national goods spending, especially for handling the COVID-19 pandemic such as the procurement of medicines and vaccines.

"The increase in spending on social assistance, especially on spending for poverty reduction and disaster management," he said.

In previous reports, Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani appealed to local governments to immediately use the APBD that has been distributed by the central government to support the national economy.

In his explanation, the Minister of Finance said that the 2021 APBD budget was recorded at Rp. 984 trillion, up from 2020 which amounted to Rp. 880 trillion.

However, the realization until March 2021 was only Rp. 80.6 trillion, lower than last year's achievement in the same period of Rp. 106 trillion.

"So in this case, the APBD income is higher, but the spending is lower. This is what needs to be a lesson so that local governments can participate as a driving force for economic recovery by using their APBD instruments, ”he said in the 2021 Central Development Coordination Meeting which was broadcast virtually, Thursday, April 29.

Meanwhile, the realization of state expenditure (APBN) for the first quarter of 2021 reached IDR 523.04 trillion, an increase compared to the realization of the first quarter of 2020 which amounted to IDR 452.41 trillion.