Bahlil Calls Jokowi's Ministers Working Hard During A Pandemic: They Have Basins Under Their Eyes Due To Lack Of Sleep

Investment Minister Bahlil Lahadalia (Photo: Instagram @bahlillahadalia)

JAKARTA - Investment Minister/Head of the Investment Coordinating Board Bahlil Lahadalia predicts that Indonesia's economic growth in 2021 will only reach 4 to 4.3 percent. He assessed that 5 percent economic growth would be difficult to achieve.

Bahlil said the reason was because of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. As a result, it is difficult to achieve economic growth targets.

"Our belief at the Ministry of Investment is that national economic growth in late 2021 has the potential to grow, at 5 percent it is a bit heavy, but 4 to 4.3 I am still optimistic," he said in a webinar, Sunday, September 26.

According to Bahlil, the impact of the second wave of COVID-19 in July 2021 is greater than the 2020 period. Therefore, the government needs to implement a strict mobility restriction policy to stem the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19.

Furthermore, Bahlil said that so far the strategies made by the government have always changed according to the situation. In fact, the current strategy can change in a matter of weeks.

"We use the concept of a moment, a sense. Almost all over the world there is not a single book that can be used as a reference for handling handlers in a pandemic," he said.

According to Bahlil, the ministers who served had worked hard to the point of not having enough time to rest in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Bahlil said ministers on average had dark circles under their eyes which reflected that they had worked hard to deal with the pandemic.

"That's why you see that many of these ministers have black under-eyes, because they don't get much sleep. Always think this week has strategy A, in the next two weeks that strategy may no longer apply if conditions change," he said.

Indonesia's economy is quite good

Bahlil said that the current economic condition was not good. However, when compared to countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia's condition is quite better.

The statement was in response to the results of a survey conducted by the Indonesian Political Indicator, which showed that 44.1 percent of respondents considered the national economic condition to be in an unfavorable state. A total of 36.7 percent considered the national economy to be bad and 7.4 percent considered the economic condition to be very bad.

"As much as 44.2 percent of the economic performance is not encouraging, I can say that the possibility is true. However, our economic performance compared to other countries in Southeast Asia, we are still quite better," he said.

Bahlil explained that the national economic growth since the fourth quarter of 2020 has begun to experience an improvement trend by growing minus 2.19 percent (qtq). Then in the first quarter of 2021 it grew 0.74 percent (qtq) and in the second quarter of 2021 it grew 3.31 percent (qtq) or 7.07 percent (yoy).