Dissolved With Paid Vaccines, Faisal Basri Reminds Minister Of Health Budi Sadikin Is No Longer Deputy Minister Of BUMN

Senior economist Faisal Basri. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Senior economist Faisal Basri said the Minister of Health (Menkes) Budi Gunadi Sadikin had a strong enough role in the paid vaccination plan through the state company PT Kimia Farma Tbk which targets individuals (independent).

To note, before serving as Minister of Health, Budi was Deputy Minister (Wamen) of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN).

"Perhaps Mr. @BudiSadikin forgot that he is no longer the Deputy Minister of BUMN," he said on his personal Twitter page @FaisalBasri quoted on Tuesday, July 13.

However, the discourse of the paid vaccine was then met with opposition from a number of community groups, which made Kimia Farma finally postpone the plan.

"The noble task of SOEs is value creating for the benefit of the people, not value extraction or rent hunting. That's why there is a SOE Minister," Faisal continued.

In fact, Faisal had issued a strong opinion that the government should not continue the commercial vaccination program in the current situation.

“The supply of vaccines is still limited. The practice of selling vaccines is a barbaric act. The government must prohibit it, especially those selling SOEs," he said.

In some of his tweets, Faisal even mentions the agenda of selling vaccines as a rent-seeking behavior that is not good to do when pandemic pressure is at its worst.

“Based on the initial scenario, imagine how lucrative the SOE vaccine business is. If the profit is Rp. 100,000 for the injection, the rent is Rp. 17.2 trillion. That's why there is a mutual cooperation vaccine (the rent-seeking vaccine is more appropriate)," he said.

For information, the state-owned pharmaceutical company Kimia Farma is planned to start selling paid COVID-19 vaccines on Monday, July 12 yesterday. However, this was not implemented due to opposition from various parties.

"We apologize because the Individual Mutual Assistance Vaccination schedule, which originally started on Monday, July 12, 2021, will be postponed until further notice," said Kimia Farma Corporate Secretary Change Winarno Putro.