Sri Mulyani Recalls The Eerie Sound Of The Ambulance When Puncak Delta When Delivering Accountability For The 2021 State Budget

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani delivered a government speech in response to the views of the DPR faction on the 2021 APBN Accountability Bill.

While speaking at the Plenary Session forum, the Minister of Finance reminded again that the vaccination process was only carried out massively in the second and third quarters of 2021. Meanwhile, the variants of COVID-19 continued to change, becoming more infectious and more virulent.

“Hospitals are full, the number of patients is soaring and the toll is rising. We even remember the sound of ambulances continuing to deliver COVID-19 victims," he said at the Senayan Parliament Complex, Jakarta on Tuesday, August 23.

According to the Minister of Finance, because of this situation, the government was forced to carry out several strict restrictions on human movement or emergency PPKM to protect the people from the threat of death and health due to COVID-19. This resulted in a decline and weakening of economic activity.

"In such conditions, the State Budget for Fiscal Year 2021 becomes a very important and very decisive instrument, both in providing vaccines and funding vaccination programs, providing social support with assistance to the community and MSMEs as well as to encourage continuous economic recovery with various incentives for the business world. , including tax incentives," he said.

In the Minister of Finance's explanation, it was stated that the government had the support of the DPR to carry out extraordinari policies for the effective implementation of the 2021 State Budget.

"The policies taken by the government together with the DPR are primarily aimed at ensuring that the public can still enjoy the optimal benefits of the APBN during the pandemic," he stressed.

For information, the PC PEN 2021 budget is absorbed by Rp. 655.1 trillion or 87.9 percent of the allocated ceiling of Rp. 744.8 trillion.

This value is divided into five main clusters, with the realization of the health cluster of IDR 198.1 trillion, the social protection cluster (Perlinsos) of IDR 167.7 trillion, the MSME and Corporate support cluster of IDR 116.2 trillion.

Then, the priority program cluster is IDR 105.6 trillion and the last is the business incentive cluster of IDR 67.6 trillion.