Controlling Inflation Is Not Difficult, Jokowi Asks The Head Of The Detailed Work Area Not Just Signing Files at the Office

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo asked regional heads, whether governors, regents, or mayors, not only to work in offices and sign documents, but also to work in detail to control inflation.

"Actually, it's not that difficult, do you just want to do the details or not? Or do you just sign in the office?" said President Jokowi in Jakarta, Antara, Thursday, September 29.

The President conveyed this at the "Direction of the President of the Republic of Indonesia to all Ministers/Heads of Institutions, Regional Heads, SOEs Leaders, Regional Military Commanders, Regional Police Chiefs, and Kajati" which was attended by the Indonesian Vice President Ma'ruf Amin, ministers of the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet, governors, heads of institutions, leaders of SOEs, and other relevant officials.

It was disclosed that the first scourge of all countries today is inflation. There are five countries whose inflation is more than 80 percent.

"Therefore, we must be united! We must unite from the center, provinces, regencies/municipalities, down to the bottom, and all ministries/agencies like when we handled COVID-19 yesterday, if we can work together with COVID-19, this inflation issue we have to agree together?", asked President Jokowi.

Attendees and invitees who attended were also greeted with the words: "Agreed."

"In other countries, inflation is a matter for the central bank, the way is to increase the interest rate by several basis points so that credit becomes 'braked', money that runs to the public is also 'braked', inflation is down, but theories like that now do not guarantee that inflation will fall", said the President.

Therefore, President Jokowi said that the practice in Indonesia is that fiscal and monetary policies must go hand in hand.

"So, I'm happy that Bank Indonesia for monetary policy and the Ministry of Finance for fiscal matters go hand in hand and harmoniously without us interfering with BI's authority. However, what's more, important is not the money supply brake, but rather solving it in the end, namely the increase in the price of goods and services, It is the responsibility of all of us", said the President.

The President again asked regional heads to intervene in transportation costs from production sites to markets.

"For example, when the price of eggs goes up, where are the eggs produced? In Bogor? In Blitar? In Purwodadi? If for example in Palembang the price of eggs goes up, just take eggs from Bogor, and let traders or distributors buy them in Bogor but the transportation costs are covered by the provincial budget. or districts or cities", said the President.

The President said the cost of transporting by truck from Bogor to Palembang was around IDR 10 million to IDR 12 million.

"And you don't have to transport eggs every day, maybe 2 times a week is enough, is it just about eggs every day? Isn't it? For example, shallots are produced in Brebes, why is the price of shallots high in Lampung? Yes, already Brebes transportation costs "Lampung is closed by the provincial or district or city budgets", said the President.

The cost to transport the shallots, he said, is around IDR 8 million to IDR 8.5 million.

"This is a small amount of money, but we have to work in detail, we can no longer do macro work, micro work is also not enough, we add detailed work to find problems, 'problems' are easy to solve", he said.

The President continued, "I believe that if everything works, supplies, supplies are worked out, transportation is closed from the State Budget (APBD) from unexpected funds, general transfer funds will not be difficult to reduce inflation, and Bank Indonesia (BI) will also move."