Health Workers Need Not Worry, Minister Of Health Budi Gunadi: Excess Incentives Will Not Be Taken Back

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin confirmed that his party will not withdraw the excess payment of health worker incentives (nakes) that have been received by health workers.

The overpayment was received by 8,961 health workers. The amount of this overpayment of health workers varies from the range of hundreds of thousands to Rp50 million.

Furthermore, Budi said that he would compensate the payment instead of withdrawing the money that had been received by the health workers. The compensation received is in the form of repayment through deductions of incentives received later by the health workers.

"So for the health workers, I entrust you not to worry, (the excess) will not be taken back, you can still concentrate on your work," he said in a virtual press conference, Monday, November 1.

Budi explained that the mechanism had been discussed with the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) and had agreed not to withdraw the money that had been given to health workers.

"The decision we took, the discussion with BPK RI friends was not to withdraw (excess transfers) but to compensate. If it was withdrawn, it would be a pity," he explained.

According to Budi, the excess of incentives occurred due to problems in the process of updating recipient data. Meanwhile, the problem started when the government wanted to pay medical personnel arrears in 2020 which amounted to Rp1.4 trillion. The arrears have been processed and paid in 2021.

Furthermore, Budi said that during the incentive payment process, the Ministry of Health changed the system for disbursing funds directly to health workers through an application. Previously, incentives were not given to medical personnel directly or through hospitals.

In the process of transitioning this payment system, Budi Gunadi admitted that there were data cleansing problems, such as duplication of recipients. He also confirmed that the Ministry of Health had fixed the data problem. "But for the duplication below 1 percent," he explained.

Previously, the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) found that there was an overpayment of incentives for health workers (nakes). The overpayment between January and August 2021 occurred due to a technical error when withdrawing the health worker incentive proposal database from the health worker incentive application managed by the health human resources development and empowerment agency (PPSDM).

The chairman of BPK Agung Firman Sampurna said that the overpayment of health workers' incentives was due to the duplication of the recipient's name. Because, when changes were made to using a new system with an application, it turned out that there was one procedure that was not followed, namely data cleansing.

Agung said, the Ministry of Health skipped the step of data cleansing when rotating incentive payments from local government (Pemda)-based to application-based.

"There was the publication of intensive recipient data, and this data was used as the basis for payment of health workers incentives so that there was an overpayment for 8,961 health workers," he said.

Incentive payments through applications are needed to minimize deductions and other cases that often occur when they are distributed through the local government. Meanwhile, if through the application, health workers can immediately receive these incentives.

Furthermore, Agung said that the amount of overpayment for health workers incentives varied from hundreds of thousands to Rp50 million per health worker.

"This excess payment is recorded until January 1, 2021-19 August 2021 and varies between Rp178 thousand to Rp50 million," he explained.

Agung said that the results of the BPK examination were part of an examination of the management of Indonesia's 2020 - 2021 Emergency Response to COVID-19 foreign loans at the Ministry of Health in the amount of USD 500 million from the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Furthermore, Agung explained that the purpose of the examination was to provide an assessment of the compliance of the program or activity in achieving the Disbursement Linked Indicator (DLI)/Disbursement Linked Result (DLR) of the foreign loan.