The Establishment Of The Committee For Handling COVID-19 And PEN Led By Erick Thohir Is Considered Ineffective

Minister of BUMN, Erick Thohir. (Photo by: Setkab)

JAKARTA - The formation of the Committee for Handling COVID-19 and National Economic Recovery has drawn reactions from various parties. One of them is the Research Director of the Center of Reform on Economics (CORE) Indonesia, Piter Abdullah, who thinks the formation of this committee is ineffective.

Piter actually questioned the formation of this committee. This is because in this committee there are three institutions, namely a policy task force, overcoming the economy, and handling the outbreak. He considered that this composition was similar to a working cabinet in the government.

"I'm actually worried. Because there are three institutions in this committee. Then there is Mr. Erick Thohir as the chief executive. If we look at the composition, it can be said that it is relatively the same as the cabinet. So what is its function, I mean," he said, in a virtual discussion, Tuesday, July 21.

According to Piter, the functions in this committee should be functions within the cabinet. Where there must be coordination between the coordinating ministers in charge of the economy and also in charge of health.

"Then the implementation should be in the ministry. Now with this committee, I am very difficult to imagine what the role of the ministry will be. Later the implementation will be coordinated with the Chief Executive, Pak Erick Thohir," he said.

Piter said, if coordination does not go well between the Ministry and the Daily Executive Chair of the COVID-19 and PEN Management Committee, it will have an impact on the government's credibility.

"I imagine this committee is at first risk of being ineffective. If that happens it will reduce the credibility of the government," he said.

On the same occasion, Executive Director of CORE Indonesia, Mohammad Faisal said, there is a lot of work that must be done by this committee formed by President Joko Widodo. One of them, answering about the new normalcy.

"The reason for the imposition of the new normal is how to prevent the epidemic with economic growth or help the economy go hand in hand," he said.

Even though there is now less pressure on the economy even though it has not expanded, the positive number of COVID-19 is still rising. This must be resolved by the Committee on Economic Handling.

Furthermore, said Faisal, the biggest challenge was to implement a policy to handle COVID-19. Because, currently the approach used is still from the bureaucratic side. So, the realization is very slow.

"The synergy between institutions has taken so long that the realization of the PEN budget is still below 40 percent of the average. Can this challenge be answered? Can it be or not," he explained.

Moreover, said Faisal, it is predicted that the Indonesian economy this year will still experience a contraction. This condition should also be a concern.