Kasetpres Heru Is A Funny Story At The Start Of The Pandemic, There Are Ministers Of Protests To Check Temperatures When They Want To Enter The Palace

Kasetpres Heru Budi Hartono as well as Acting Governor of DKI Jakarta Heru Budi Hartono. ( Press Bureau Setpres-Rusman)

Head of the Presidential Secretariat (Kasetpres) Heru Budi Hartono revealed a story about President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi) activities at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, the tightening of access to the Palace had been implemented.

The ranks of ministers of the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet who have an agenda meeting with Jokowi must also be checked. Anyone who meets Jokowi at that time must go through a health check, one of which is checking body temperature.

"The story is a little funny. So, when we apply health tightening to guests who enter the Palace or meet the President," said Heru at the National Coordination Meeting (Rakornas) for the COVID-19 Handling and National Economic Recovery Transition (PC-PEN) at AA Maramis Building, Ministry of Finance, Jakarta, Thursday 26 January.

"We have to respect the ministers. Usually they enter the security door, so it's passed. But at that time we had to pocket the ministers (check) the temperature," he continued.

As it turned out, there were some ministers who felt they did not accept it because they were not used to being treated like that. They then protested to Heru.

"There were several ministers protesting to me. 'Pak Heru, why should I be poked at the temperature? I'm healthy.' That's the first time, maybe throughout Indonesia has not been done, this is our first time in Jakarta, the Palace," explained Heru, who is also the Acting Governor of DKI Jakarta.

"Yes, I said, 'Sorry sir, this is because this is for our common interest. After that, one week, two weeks, 3 weeks, we are used to it," he continued.

Heru explained, before the first case of COVID-19 was detected in Indonesia, the Palace had taken a policy of distributing work from home (WFH) to a number of employees and carried out alternately.

In addition, the Presidential Secretariat is also trying to minimize Jokowi's direct contact with other people, even to guests from other countries who come to Indonesia.

"We are the first in the world to dare to apply state guests that we must be strict during the COVID-19 conditions. The first is that we don't need to shake hands with the ministers who are present. From Japan, we say, 'Sorry, Mr. President can't greet you'. So only long distances have protest comments from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from them. But we still run it, "explained Heru.