Discussing KKN, Rizal Ramli Alludes To 'Children Of Bawang' Investing Hundreds Of Billions Of Sales From Banana-Martabak, Sindir Putra Jokowi?

Senior economist, Rizal Ramli. (Photo: Instagram @rizalramli.official)

JAKARTA - Economic expert and politician Rizal Ramli highlighted the increasingly rampant behavior of corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN) during the reign of Joko Widodo-Ma'ruf Amin.

In fact, the condition of the country is being hit by the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to having an impact on the number of people dying, the handling of the COVID pandemic has also 'forced' the state to spend such a large budget.

Ironically, according to Rizal Ramli, the trillions of rupiah budget spent throughout 2020 is not clearly used.

"Pandemic is a difficult time, 120 thousand people died, now 140 thousand people. It should be a time of concern for us as a nation, our time is really solid, we make contact, we help each other because many of our friends, our families are our people who are victims of this

"How come, throughout 2020, the budget used to fight the Rp. 1035 trillion pandemic has no impact at all, we will examine it later," explained Rizal Ramli in a discussion broadcast on the Youtube channel @Refly Harun, quoted on Monday, December 13.

Rizal Ramli then quipped that there was a young man who had so much money and dared to invest hundreds of billions of rupiah. In fact, the businesses managed only sell bananas and martabak.

"Today there is a small child, the onion child invests hundreds of billions, where does the money come from? Isn't the money from the business of selling bananas or selling martabak?" said Rizal Ramli without mentioning who the young man was.

In the title of the Youtube content, Refly Harun explicitly states that what is meant is the child of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi). The title is, 'CHILDREN JOKOWI BUYS ALMOST 100 M SHARE, RIZAL RAMLI: WHERE DOES THE MONEY FROM? SELLING BANANA ONLY!!'

Back to Rizal Ramli, the practice of nepotism has long been opposed and criticized. Before Jokowi, Rizal admitted that the same practice was carried out by Suharto's son, Tommy Suharto. During the reign of Abdurrahman Wahid or Gus Dur, the former Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia was once summoned by Gus Dur to be consulted about Suharto's arrest.

"Gus Dur was so powerful he called me, how can we arrest Rizal Pak Harto? I said no. There are still many generals who are loyal to Pak Harto, if we arrest the government in a month, Gus Dur will fall with me later in that,"

"I don't like the president being processed and tried legally, but maybe because it's gone too far, maybe we can open a new history so that we give up," said Rizal Ramli.