Government Is Considered To Have Broken Promises Regarding Research Budget

Research and Technology Illustration (Photo: Pixabay)

JAKARTA - Member of Commission VII DPR RI, Mulyanto, assessed that the Government has broken promises regarding the plan to consolidate research budgets in various government ministries. This is due to the fact that the research budget in the 2022 RAPBN has shrunk by a third.

According to him, this small research budget posture shows that the Government's commitment to developing research activities is not proven. Whereas previously, said Mulyanto, when the government wanted to form BRIN, the government said the research budget would be consolidated into one institution, with the aim of making it efficient and effective.

"The government's promise to consolidate research budgets through BRIN has turned out to be an empty promise," said Mulyanto in his statement, Saturday, August 28.

Mulyanto said that in the 2021 State Budget and 2022 RAPBN the research budget has declined. Several ministries that have liquidated their Balitbang no longer have a budget for Research and Innovation in Science and Technology, only 9 Ministries remain that have a research budget.

"Unfortunately, however, the research budget from the ministry that liquidated the Balitbang was replaced with another budget line nomenclature. The research budget was not moved on top into the research budget at BRIN," said the PKS politician.

As a result, continued Mulyanto, in a national consolidation with the formation of BRIN, instead of an increase in the national research budget, what happened was on the contrary decreasing. In fact, in the 2022 State Budget Bill, there are 13 Ministries and 6 Research and Technology LPNKs (including BRIN), which have a nomenclature of the Science and Technology Research and Innovation budget with a total budget of only Rp5 trillion.

Then in previous years, according to data from the Ministry of Research and Technology, the research budget reached Rp15 trillion from the total government budget on research and development (GBORD) which was around Rp36 trillion.

"If these rates are accurate, then the decline in the national research budget is quite significant, from Rp15 T to only Rp5 T. Only one-third remains. So it is only natural that we question the Government's promise to consolidate the research budget behind the formation of BRIN," Mulyanto added.

To note, the science and technology budget based on Kemenristek data for 2018, 2019, and 2020 is Rp33 T, Rp35 T, and Rp36 trillion, respectively. From the science and technology budget, 50 percent of the research budget is allocated. The rest is for salary and other management support.