Jokowi Asks For Less Year-end Long Holidays

DOCK. BPMI / President Joko Widodo

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo has asked his staff to make policies that reduce the allowance for joint leave at the end of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Regarding the issue of holidays, year-end joint leave, including holidays in lieu of leave together for the Eid al-Firti, the President gave directions for a reduction," said Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture of Indonesia (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effend in a press conference broadcast. Presidential Secretariat Youtube, Monday, 23 November

Muhadjir said Jokowi asked the Coordinating Ministry for PMK to hold a coordination meeting with related ministries and agencies to set a date for reducing the period of collective leave at the end of the year.

"He ordered that there should be a coordination meeting to be held by the Coordinating Ministry for PMK, especially with regard to the issue of year-end holidays and the replacement of holidays with Eid al-Fitr," said Muhadjir.

The government previously decided to abolish the joint leave of Idul Fitri 1441 Hijriyah. This joint leave will initially be shifted at the end of December 2020.

Based on the Joint Ministerial Decree Number 440 of 2020, the government stipulates collective leave on December 24 and 25 during the celebration of Christmas Day. Then, December 26 and 27 were weekends.

Then there are additional holidays in lieu of leave with Eid al-Fitr for five days, from December 28, 2020 to January 1, 2021. Then, plus the weekend of January 2 and 3, 2021.

The consideration of reducing the long holiday allowance, which should have received 11 days, came from monitoring the development of the current COVID-19 case. Chairperson of the COVID-19 Handling Task Force Doni Monardo asked the government to shorten the long holiday in case of a spike in cases.

"If the COVID-19 cases do not experience a significant increase and the COVID-19 Task Force can still control the handling of COVID-19, the Task Force will still provide input to the government to be able to continue the long holidays of Christmas and New Year 2021," said Doni.

"But when the cases increase like in the last August and September period, the recommendation is to shorten the year-end long holiday or eliminate it altogether," added Doni.