Get A Year's Deadline For Performance, Director General Of Customs And Excise: If We Fail, We'll Be Done

Director General of Customs and Excise Djaka Budhi Utama when met at the Press Conference on the Destruction of Illegal Excise Goods at the DJBC Jakarta Regional Office. (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadives asked President Prabowo Subianto for one year to make improvements to Customs performance and if within that period there is no significant progress, the government will not hesitate to freeze the institution.

Responding to this, the Director General of Customs and Excise Djaka Budhi Utama expressed his belief that improvements could be realized in one year.

He said that failure to make improvements would have serious impacts, including the possibility of freezing institutions and employees who ended up not having jobs but still receiving salaries without work.

"Yes, optimistic, we must be optimistic (improvement within one year). If we are not optimistic, next year we will all finish. Do we want Customs and Excise or Customs employees to be laid off by eating blind salaries? Of course we won't," he said when met at the Jakarta Customs Regional Office, Wednesday, December 3.

Djaka said that improvement steps will start from improving organizational culture, improving performance, and strengthening supervision at ports and airports, and committing to improving the quality of service to the community.

"Of course the community when we provide services to the community when there is dissatisfaction, yes, little by little we will try to fix it," he explained.

For example of improving performance, he continued, Customs and Excise is now starting to take advantage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to prevent under-invoiting practices at ports.

Although not yet perfect, he said, the use of this technology will continue to be developed.

"Yes, of course, we are trying to take advantage of the existing technology, such as at the port to avoid undervoices, we have made efforts to communicate with AI. So we have developed the talent tools with AI capabilities. Little by little, although not yet perfect, we have tried to get there," he said.

Djaka menyebutkan bahwa arahan Menteri Keuangan Purbaya mencakup perbaikan dari sisi sumber daya manusia hingga modernisasi peralatan.

Dia berharap, citra Bea Cukai yang dianggap sebagai sarang pungli dapat perlahan diperbaiki.

"Kami memohon dukungan dari masyarakat untuk mendukung bagaimana kita kedepannya menjadi lebih baik," jelasnya.

Djaka said that the direction of the Minister of Finance of Purbaya includes improvements in terms of human resources to modernizing equipment.

He hopes that the image of Customs and Excise which is considered a hotbed of extortion can be slowly repaired.

"We ask for support from the community to support how we will be better in the future," he explained.