Erick Thohir 'Responded' Faisal Basri's Allegation About Hundreds Of Trillion BUMN Injection: The State Needs Additional Income Apart From Taxes

Minister of SOEs, Erick Thohir. (Photo: Doc. Ministry of SOEs)

JAKARTA - Minister of SOEs, Erick Thohir responded to accusations by Senior Economist at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) Faisal Basri that the government should focus on handling the COVID-19 pandemic rather than providing capital injections to several SOEs. Erick Thohir said, in this democratic era, suggestions and criticisms are commonplace.

"Of course the input from Faisal Basri can be our evaluation material," said Erick Thohir on his official Instagram account @erickthohir, quoted Wednesday, July 21.

Furthermore, said Erick, SOEs will continue to carry out transformations so that they can carry out corporate actions as well as possible. The reason, he said, according to him, the state needs additional funds apart from taxes, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic.

"We, SOEs, continue to carry out transformations so that we can continue to take corporate actions because the state needs additional income besides taxes, especially during this Covid-19 situation. Of course, what is no less important is that we continue to ensure public services, this is what distinguishes SOEs from the private sector," he explained.

Previously, Faisal Basri criticized the Minister of SOEs who would inject PMN as much as Rp106 trillion for state-owned companies for 2021 and 2022.

According to Faisal, it is better for the Minister of SOEs, who also serves as the Chief Executive of the Policy Committee for COVID-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery (PEN), should focus on dealing with the pandemic so that people's lives are saved.

"The Chief Executive of the Policy Committee for the Handling of Covid-19 and PEN is the Minister of SOEs. Instead of saving people's lives, he is busy dealing with SOE injections of hundreds of trillions and deworming drugs. Just disband the committee," said Faisal via Twitter account @FaisalBasri, last Friday, July 9.