JAKARTA - INDEF's Senior Economist, Faisal Basri, highlighted the formation of the Committee for Handling COVID-19. Because, in the team, BUMN Minister Erick Thohir is also the chief executive. In fact, he said, Erick should have focused on the problems that exist in state-owned companies, especially about the debt of PT PLN (Persero).
Responding to this, Staff of the Minister of BUMN Arya Sinulingga said that Erick had already handled the government's debt to PLN. In fact, the bill has already entered into the state budget.
"What Bang Faisal Basri said has already been done, for example the PLN issue discussed by Bang Faisal, the PLN bill to the government has been taken care of, so far the government has not collected the bill for years, now it is collectible," he told reporters. , Tuesday, July 28.
According to Arya, related government debt to PLN has even been approved by the DPR. This means that this debt issue has been handled by the Ministry of BUMN. The same applies to government debts to Pertamina. Arya said the debt had already been taken care of and was included in the state budget.
"Pertamina this year has given dividends to the government, Pertamina's bills to the government have also been collected this year. Which for years was uncollected and included in the 2020 State Budget?" He explained.
Regarding the state-owned airline Garuda Indonesia, said Arya, Erick has also taken care of it. Arya said Garuda had received approval regarding a bailout or loan of IDR 8.5 trillion. Garuda's debt has also been restructured to improve Garuda's finances.
"The Garuda problem is the same. It has been taken care of yesterday. Garuda has received a Mandatory Convertible Bond (MCB) for loans of Rp 8.5 trillion. Then the debt restructuring was also carried out by Garuda last June," he said.
According to Arya, Erick worked quickly in BUMN, including in the handling of COVID-19, such as providing emergency hospitals, PCR tests to vaccine problems.
Furthermore, he assessed that President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) chose Erick as the executive chairman of the committee for handling COVID-19 and for national economic recovery because of his speed of work.
"So the work is very fast, as well as matters to this day, the vaccine problem is done quickly by BUMN, that's why the President sees the fast work, maybe Mr. Erick is why Mr. Erick was chosen to handle this," he explained.
Previously, Senior Economist Indef Faisal Basri highlighted the formation of the Committee for Handling COVID-19. Faisal thinks this step does not show the seriousness of the government in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
The committee, which is chaired and filled by the ranks of the Coordinating Ministers in the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet accompanied by several other ministers, according to Faisal, is nothing more like a limited cabinet meeting.
"Then the chief executing agency will be the Minister of BUMN (Erick Thohir), who almost all BUMN (companies) have problems. Just solve it first so that the BUMN can get out of the problem. This means that the chief executive is the source of the problem," he said, in a virtual discussion, Tuesday, July 28. .
According to Faisal, Erick should focus on solving problems in BUMN. Given the state-owned companies under his ministry are companies related to the interests of many people. One of them, PT PLN (Persero).
"Finish PLN, pay the PLN bill to the government. Finish Pertamina, Garuda, these are all elephants. He can't take care of that alone, how come he wants to take care of Indonesia, that's right," he said.
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