Held Sapa Desa Program, Minister Gus Halim Wants To Open Dialogue With Village Communities Without Bureaucratic Insulation

JAKARTA - The Minister of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration Halim Iskandar is said to have felt angry at the beginning of his term in office. He said he wanted to directly greet village heads (Kades) throughout Indonesia without any problems.

In order to realize his wish, Gus Halim, Halim Iskandar's nickname, gathered all the ranks under him. At that time he received an answer that there is no regulation that prohibits it.

Long story short, the Ministry of this reform era formed a program called Sapa Desa. This was told by the Head of the Information Development Agency (BPI) of the Ministry of Villages, Ivanovich Agusta, in a webinar today.

"Sapa Desa is the ear and mouth of the Ministry of Villages because it is a direct initiative to build dialogue with the community," Ivanovich said on Monday, June 20.

According to him, the communication built is not only carried out by the central government with village officials, but also with all elements of society.

"It can be seen that we are in dialogue with village heads, NGOs, as well as with professional assistants to local legislators and related institutions," he said.

For this reason, Ivanovich considers that all inputs and statements from the public are a mandate that must be fulfilled.

"If someone uses the Sapa Desa route, it shows that he has strong energy to be able to solve his problems, so this should not be wasted," said Ivanovich.

Furthermore, the bureaucrat who is also listed as an academic explained that Sapa Desa facilitators need special skills in order to be able to build effective communication with the entire community.

“To the village we have to give the simplest explanation. We also created a group of short messages about how to socialize the government's work program so that its implementation in the field can actually go well," he said.

Citing data released by the Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu), it is known that the central budget allocation to local governments this year has reached IDR 769.6 trillion in the form of Transfers to Regions and Village Funds (TKDD).

This figure is equivalent to 28.35 percent of the total state expenditures listed in the 2022 State Budget Law with a total of IDR 2,714.2 trillion. Meanwhile, in the 2023 RAPBN it is recorded that the amount of TKDD is planned to be Rp. 800.2 trillion to Rp. 832.4 trillion.