Concerning The Apology Of Pertamax Rising, Fahri Hamzah Links Erick Thohir With The 2024 Presidential Candidate: No Debate Has Been Gone

Deputy Chairperson of the Gelora Party Fahri Hamzah. (Instagram @fahrihamzah)

JAKARTA - Deputy Chairperson of the Gelora Party Fahri Hamzah satirized the Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Erick Thohir, who apologized for the increase in Pertamax fuel oil (BBM) in the market.

Fahri made an analogy for Erick, if he became a presidential candidate, he had lost badly in a debate between other presidential candidates. Later, it was discovered that Erick had received support from community groups to run as a presidential candidate in the 2024 Presidential Election.

"The presidential candidate is great... We haven't debated yet..." Fahri quipped on his Twitter account, @Fahrihamzah, quoted on Friday April 1st.

Fari then quoted a fragment of Iwan Fals' song entitled Galang Rambu Anarchy, which infuriated the New Order government's policy of revoking subsidies for the needs of the underprivileged.

According to him, the subsidy aims to protect and improve the economic capacity of the poor. However, if it is repealed, the policy will be judged not in favor of the people.

For this reason, Fahri urges that in the upcoming presidential election, there will be no more presidential candidates who have the habit of ever revoking subsidies. According to him, there are other ways that can be carefully calculated and considered than removing subsidies.

"In the future, one of the criteria for a presidential candidate is not to revoke subsidies. If it's just taking subsidies from the people to lead the nation and finance development... how good is that?" said Fahri.

The Minister of SOEs, Erick Thohir, said that Pertamax fuel is not categorized as subsidized fuel, in contrast to Pertalite. He also apologized for the Pertalite type of fuel that had to be increased

"Yes, the government has decided that Pertalite will be used as a subsidy, not for Pertamax. So if Pertamax goes up, I'm sorry, but Pertalite will still be subsidized," he said while giving a public lecture at Hasanudin University Makassar, Wednesday, March 30.

Erick explained, in conditions of economic growth that was still crawling towards normal as before the COVID-19 pandemic, the government could not only rely on income from taxes. Therefore, state-owned companies must pay dividends to the state.

He said the dividends obtained by the state from state-owned companies were used to provide subsidies to the public. One of them is the Pertalite type of fuel subsidy.

Erick added that the state must spend very deep to provide fuel subsidies to the community. In fact, the number reaches trillions of rupiah. This includes electricity subsidies for 450 VA customers.

"But that is the government's policy where fuel subsidies reach tens of trillions. Yesterday 450 electricity was free of social assistance and others. So the government is here," he concluded.