Minister Of Home Affairs Asks Regional Heads Not To Hesitate To Limit Community Activities Kegiatan

Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Minister of Home Affairs Muhammad Tito Karnavian asked regional heads not to hesitate to limit and prohibit a number of community activities in order to suppress the spread of COVID-19, especially in Java and Bali.

Tito said the restriction policy that will be issued by the region will be supported by the central government and various other agencies such as the TNI and Polri.

"With the forkopimda meeting attended by TNI and Polri ranks as well as the prosecutor's office as a vertical agency that accompanies fellow regional heads, I ask fellow regional heads to also be more confident in implementing PPKM," Tito said during a virtual coordination meeting with a number of regional heads in Jakarta quoted by Antara, Friday, July 2.

President Joko Widodo on Thursday, July 1, announced that the government would implement emergency PPKM in Java and Bali from July 3 to 20, 2021.

The President's order was then followed up by the Instruction of the Minister of Home Affairs Number 15/2021 regarding the COVID-19 Emergency PPKM in the Java and Bali regions.

The instruction signed by Tito in Jakarta on Friday will serve as a legal basis for regional heads to close places that have the potential to trigger crowds and limit community activities outside the home.

"How to implement it? We are sure that all provinces have understood it. For districts and cities, also do not hesitate to implement it because there are instructions," Tito said during a coordination meeting as quoted from his written statement.

In the coordination meeting, Tito also advised regional heads to increase cooperation with other agencies, especially those who are members of the regional leadership coordination forum (forkopimda).

According to Tito, the cohesiveness of Forkopimda is one of the factors that determine the success of implementing activity restrictions during an emergency PPKM.

"The field implementation formulated by the cohesiveness of the forkopimda is the key," Tito said to the ranks of regional heads.

At least, there were 13 instructions given by the Minister of Home Affairs to provincial regional heads in Java and Bali related to the implementation of emergency PPKM.

He mentioned that the 13 instructions contained directives regarding restrictions on community activities, travel conditions, COVID-19 test targets for each region, guarantees for security support from the TNI and Polri, giving authority to regional heads to arrange vaccinations, and re-arranging the budget to prioritize pandemic response programmes.

The various directives were addressed to the Governor of DKI Jakarta, the Governor of Banten, the Governor of West Java, the Governor of Central Java, the Governor of the Special Region of Yogyakarta, the Governor of East Java, and the Governor of Bali along with the regents and mayors under them.