It Is Confirmed That The Budget Reallocation Needs To Be Confirmed For The Prosperity Of The People

Rupiah (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - The Budget Efficiency Policy launched by President Prabowo has drawn criticism from various circles. Many have questioned the effectiveness of this policy in overcoming the waste of the APBN and APBD.

President Prabowo's government budget efficiency policy has been stated in Presidential Instruction Number 1 of 2025 concerning Expenditure Efficiency in the Implementation of the 2025 State Budget and Regional Budget and Decree of the Minister of Finance No. S-37 / MK.02 / 2025 concerning the Efficiency of Expenditures of K / L in the Implementation of the 2025 State Budget.

Public Policy Observer from The PRAKARSA Ah Maftuchan said that it is necessary to ensure that the reallocation of the efficiency results budget is really allocated for the greatest prosperity of the people, not for the greatest prosperity of officials.

According to him, the use of the APBN and APBD so far has been wasteful, less effective, less accountable, less transparent and less impactful in the development of people's welfare and has had little impact on the fulfillment of the basic rights of citizens.

The total APBN used for employee salary expenditures reached an average of 15-18 percent. The total Transfer to Regions and Village Funds (TKDD) from the APBN of approximately 30 percent of its utilization is also still dominated by spending on employee salaries in the regions. The average local government spends its APBD on employee salary expenditures is still high, between 25 percent-40 percent," he said in his statement, Wednesday, February 12.

In addition to spending on high employee salaries, Maftuchan said that the inefficiencies in the management of the APBN and APBD also occur in spending on goods/services for non-essential activities of K/L and the Office.

According to him, it is not uncommon to spend on activities at a very high cost while the impact is very low.

Maftuchan assessed that the budget efficiency agenda initiated by President Prabowo brought a number of positive sides, namely this policy could have a positive impact on the management of the state budget.

"This is important so that the government at all levels has the same will to change in more efficient state financial management," he said.

In addition, Maftuchan said that this agenda is also one concrete evidence that the government wants to act to increase efficiency in the use of state money.

"When viewed from the percentage of budget efficiency consisting of a Ministry/Institution budget of Rp256.1 trillion and a regional budget of Rp50.59 trillion, this shows that President Prabowo is still considering the importance of maintaining regional stability, where so far as a large area still depends heavily on the central government," he said.

According to Maftuch, this policy also has the potential to reduce budget allocations for the people, either through activity programs or through subsidies or assistance, meaning that if the government is not careful in budgeting, the program to increase the fulfillment of people's rights will not receive adequate allocations.

Maftuchan gave an example, such as the potential for additional BPJS Kesehatan membership through a scheme that provides contribution assistance by the government (PBI Participants) with the potential to decrease, energy subsidies have the potential to decrease, health subsidies have the potential to decrease and others.

Furthermore, according to him, the government also needs to see the direct impact of this efficiency policy for MSME players.

"This will also have the potential for economic stagnation in business sectors that are affected by the efficiency agenda. For example, cutting ATK procurement by 90 percent and 75.9 percent printing sectors, the government needs to intervene in the negative impact on the economic sector that is connected to the ATK sector (office writing equipment), printing businesses and souvenir manufacturing businesses," he said.

"Moreover, making souvenirs is usually an MSME effort that absorbs a lot of labor. In this case, the government needs to take anticipatory steps so that there is no negative externality in economic activities that are connected to the efficiency agenda," he added.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Education and Technology, Ministry of Education and Culture, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Housing are several ministries affected by large budget efficiency. For example, the Ministry of Public Works was affected by a 73.35 percent cut or IDR 81.38 trillion and the Ministry of Health was cut by IDR 19.63 trillion.

Maftuchan said that some of these ministries are ministries related to the agenda for the fulfillment of the basic rights of citizens such as infrastructure, education, health, agriculture and housing where there needs to be a re-check of budget components imposed by cuts to ensure caution so as not to have a bad impact on the fate of the people.

According to him, not only the community, this policy can affect the decline in the evidence-based policy approach (evidence-based policy).

"Currently, the efficiency agenda targeting study and analysis activities is 51.5 percent. In fact, study and analysis are important activities to ensure that a program or policy is based on empirical evidence. If there is no study and analysis, then policies will be better determined by intuition and political preferences," said Maftuchan.

On the other hand, Maftuchan said that the government did not cut the budget of the Ministry of Defense, PolRI, AGO and MA. Where the Ministry of Defense even became the ministry with the largest budget, namely Rp166.26 trillion. This shows that the government is very passionate and prioritizes the purchase of Alutsista.

According to Maftuchan, in fact, President Prabowo has set the direction of his foreign political policy to be good-neighbour policies or good neighboring policies.

"Massive purchases of defense equipment will lure neighboring countries to install horses and do not believe in the good-neighbour policy line. This means that the striking defense equipment policy is a policy that is contrary to the good-neighbour policy," he said.

Maftuchan said that President Prabowo needs to make defense budget efficiency so that there is an additional budget for pro-people programs. The POLRI, AGO and MA budgets also need to be Scrubtiny so that prolonged inefficiency does not occur in law enforcement agencies. As we know, the performance of law enforcement is still not satisfactory.

" Budget cuts for law enforcement agencies are needed so that there is a basic spirit of improvement," he explained.