Civil Society Coalition Calculates Turnover Of Residents Paying PCR Tests During The Pandemic Reaches Rp23 Trillion

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JAKARTA - The Civil Society Coalition for Health and Justice consisting of ICW, YLBHI, LaporCovid-19, and Lokataru collected data related to the circulation of money from citizens who paid for PCR tests during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is calculated from all tariffs for PCR examinations in the community, from prices that were set high at the beginning of the pandemic, to tariffs that have continued to decline until now.

"From the whole series of changes in PCR inspection rates from the beginning to the end, the Coalition noted that there was at least more than Rp23 trillion in money circulating in this business," said coalition member from LaporCovid-19, Amanda Tan in a statement, Sunday, October 31.

Meanwhile, the Coalition noted that the total potential profit from the COVID-19 test business was more than Rp10 trillion.

Then, when the government will make provisions requiring the use of PCR for all modes of transportation, the velocity of money and the potential profits obtained will certainly increase sharply.

"This condition shows that the government has failed to provide security guarantees for residents," said Amanda.

The problem is, based on the 2020 health sector COVID-19 handling budget, it is known that the actual use of the budget for the health sector is only 63.6 percent of Rp99.5 trillion.

This year's financial condition is the same. As of October 15, it is known that of the Rp193.9 trillion budget allocation for handling COVID-19 for the health sector, only 53.9 percent has been absorbed.

"Based on this condition, the government actually still has the resources to provide free access to PCR examination services to the public," she said.

For information, the government has changed the setting of the highest RT-PCR tariff several times. At the beginning of the pandemic, the price of PCR was not controlled by the government, so the price was very high, even reaching Rp2.5 million.

Then in October 2020, the new government controlled the price of PCR to Rp900,000. 10 months later the price of PCR fell again to Rp495,000 in Java-Bali and Rp525,000 outside Java-Bali due to criticism from the public who compared the costs in Indonesia to India.

Finally, on October 27, the government lowered the price to Rp275,000 in Java-Bali and Rp300,000 outside Java-Bali.