Jokowi Is Irritated By The Government's Frequent Imports, Anies' Subordinates Show Off The Highest Domestic Spending In DKI In Indonesia

Illustration-(Photo: DOK ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Today, President Joko Widodo expressed his frustration at seeing the large number of procurement of goods and services carried out by ministries, institutions, and local governments that are carried out on an import basis.

This was conveyed by Jokowi when giving a briefing at the Affirmation Action Proudly Made in Indonesia in Bali. The event was attended by ministers, heads of agencies and institutions, to regional heads throughout Indonesia.

Meanwhile, the DKI Provincial Government has shown that its domestic product expenditure record has reached IDR 5.182 trillion in the 2022 budget year budget. This figure is the highest commitment for the category of provincial governments throughout Indonesia.

This achievement was conveyed by the Head of the Office of Industry, Trade, Cooperatives, Small and Medium Enterprises of DKI Jakarta Province, Elisabeth Ratu Rante Allo, revealing the commitment to the Implementation of Business Matching Procurement of Domestic Products and MSMEs which will be held on March 22-24, 2022 in Nusa Dua, Bali.

"The realization of spending on domestic products and MSMEs in 2022 will continue to be intensified to reach IDR 11.3 trillion. This value exceeds the target set by the central government of IDR 10.1 trillion," said Ratu as quoted in her statement, Friday, March 25.

This subordinate of the Governor of DKI Jakarta, Anies Baswedan, revealed that his party had formed a Team for Increasing the Use of Domestic Products (P3DN) which would socialize and supervise the implementation of increasing domestic products within the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government.

"As a form of commitment to empowering MSMEs while increasing the use of domestic products, the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government since 2020 has required food and drink shopping for meetings of all Regional Apparatus and Regional-owned Enterprises (BUMD) through Jakpreneur MSMEs registered on the e-Order platform. This obligation is bound in the form of a performance agreement between the Heads of Regional Apparatuses and the KPI of the BUMD President Director. Currently, 2.105 MSMEs have been registered in e-Orders and 7.102 products," explained Ratu.

For information, President Joko Widodo regrets the lack of realization of domestic product purchases at ministries, institutions, and local governments. It is noted that procurement expenditures purchased from within the government are only IDR 214 trillion or 14 percent of the total budget this year.

In fact, Jokowi emphasized that the budget for the procurement of goods and services as well as the government's capital budget is very large, with details of the central government at IDR 526 trillion, regional governments to IDR 535 trillion, and SOEs at IDR 420 trillion.

"This is very big money, a lot of money, which we have never seen. If it is used, we don't have to be grandiose. Just turning 40 percent of it can trigger our economic growth which the government and regional governments can reach 1.71 percent," said Jokowi while giving a briefing during the Affirmation Action Proudly Made in Indonesia in Bali.

What makes Jokowi sad is that many government procurements of goods and services are carried out by buying foreign products. He highlighted various purchases, starting from the procurement of CCTV, TNI-Polri uniforms, medical equipment, agricultural equipment, to educational equipment, many of which were imported from abroad.

"You don't have to look anywhere, you don't have to look for investors, we just stay quiet but consistently buy goods produced by our factories, industries, SMEs, why don't we do it? We'd be stupid if we didn't do this. buy imported goods. If we buy imported goods, imagine all the ladies and gentlemen, we give jobs to other countries. Our money, capital outflows. The work is there, not here," said Jokowi.