Ministries' Budgets Are Reduced For Handling COVID-19, Mahfud MD: We Must Be Patient

Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD (ANTARA DOK)

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menko Polhukam) Mahfud MD said the government was focusing on using the APBN to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and restore the national economy.

This is done by refocusing the budget in each agency and ministry.

"Even in 2021 the DIPA (budget implementation list) has just been given by the president, we have been asked to carry out a budget refocusing which will then be submitted to the Ministry of Finance," said Mahfud when giving a speech at a virtual BPK event, Tuesday, June 29.

With this budget refocusing, of course, the budget ceiling for ministries and institutions will be reduced.

"This condition cannot be avoided because indeed we all have to concentrate on dealing with COVID-19 and restoring the national economy," he said.

For this reason, Mahfud asked all ministries and institutions to be patient when the budget had to be reduced.

"We must accept this as an unavoidable fact and we must be patient even though the budget must be reduced, refocusing, and so on. What is important is that our intentions are good," he said.

Moreover, according to Mahfud, this kind of budget refocusing has been going on since 2020 or since the pandemic occurred. At that time, ministries and agencies contrasted their budgets directly or indirectly to deal with the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

From the budget revision, the results are distributed to ministries and institutions that directly deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"At least (in 2020, ed) we must revise the budget to be submitted to the Ministry of Finance which will then be channeled to the ministries or institutions that directly handle COVID-19," said the former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court (MK).

Even so, Mahfud said the budget problem was not the only one facing the government in dealing with COVID-19. However, there is a problem that is actually more difficult and must be faced by the government.

"Managing the budget, maybe we can just easily move this here, this person here. But indeed there are some things that are not easy for the government, for example solving COVID-19," he concluded.