Faisal Basri: BUMN Do Not Do Zalim, Make Vaccines A Business Opportunity

Indef's senior economist, Faisal Basri. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Senior Economist Faisal Basri warned that State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) should not take advantage of the crisis caused by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Because according to him, this was a bad act, especially when the people were suffering.

"Do not scavenge for illegal goods in this condition, BUMN. Do not use this pandemic as a business opportunity for SOEs. That is the wrong name," he said, in a virtual discussion, Wednesday, December 23.

As is known, SOEs are currently contributing to handling COVID-19. Starting from preparing health facilities to producing drugs or vaccines for COVID-19.

It is known that PT Bio Farma (Persero) as the holding company for BUMN in the pharmaceutical sector is given the mandate to produce drugs for handling COVID-19. Through its two members, namely PT Kimia Farma Tbk and PT Indofarma Tbk, they produce drugs that are ready for use.

Not only that, PT Bio Farma is also working with Sinovac, a pharmaceutical company from China to produce a vaccine called CoronaVac. The vaccine phase III clinical trial was carried out in Indonesia.

Bio Farma is also working with the Faculty of Medicine at Padjadjaran University to prepare a clinical trial for the COVID-19 vaccine, which has started clinical trials on August 14 and was injected into 1,620 volunteers in Bandung City. In phase II 1,630 volunteers to receive the injection.

BUMN received a mandate to carry out a vaccination program for 75 million populations with a vaccine need of 150 million doses. Currently, through Bio Farma, Indonesia has ordered 155 million doses, with the potential for an additional 116 million doses.

Initially, the government through BUMN Minister Erick Thohir said that vaccination would be carried out in two schemes, namely free and paid. However, recently President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) emphasized that vaccines are free for all citizens.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati emphasized that the government has prepared a budget to finance the free COVID-19 vaccine program. Currently, there is a budget of Rp. 54.4 trillion which is ready to be reserved for the COVID-19 vaccination program next year.

This vaccine budget will be obtained from an allocation in the 2021 State Budget of IDR 18 trillion, plus a health budget allocation in the 2020 National Economic Recovery Program (PEN) of IDR 36.4 trillion which has not been used.

However, until now the government is still calculating the technical vaccination plan starting from the need for funds to purchase vaccines, as well as the certainty of the number of people who will be vaccinated, to supporting instruments for COVID-19 vaccination.