Commission VIII Of The DPR And The Ministry Of Social Affairs Agree To Stop Discussion Of The Disaster Management Bill

Working meeting between Commission VIII and the government and DPD RI/ Photo: Nailin/VOI

JAKARTA - Commission VIII of the House of Representatives (DPR) and the Ministry of Social Affairs (Kemensos) have agreed to stop discussing the Draft Law (RUU) on Disaster Management. This is because the government does not want to include the National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB) nomenclature into law.

The agreement was decided in the working meeting of the House of Representatives Commission VIII with the Minister of Social Affairs Tri Rismaharini today, Wednesday, April 13.

Chairman of Commission VIII of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) Yandri Susanto explained that his party initiated the Draft Disaster Management Bill because he wanted to strengthen BNPB in the law. However, it has been more than two years that this bill has not made any progress.

"Today we held a working meeting between Commission VIII and the government and DPD RI, which discussed the fate of the draft Law on Disaster Management. This draft is an initiative of Commission VIII, its spirit is to strengthen BNPB institutions, including from the budget side in terms of coordination and so on," said Yandri at the parliament complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Wednesday, April 13.

"The point is that we want BNPB to be strong. It turns out that for almost 2 years, there is no agreement between the government and the DPR," he continued.

Yandri said the government did not want a BNPB institution. In fact, Commission VIII of the DPR wants to strengthen it.

"This means that if BNPB does not exist, it means that it is disbanded. Therefore, because of our enthusiasm from the start, we wanted to strengthen BNPB, while the government represented by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Law and Human Rights, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of State Apparatus Empowerment and Bureaucratic Reform of the Republic of Indonesia (KemenPAN-RB) including the Minister of Health, did not agree with the existence of the BNPB institution," he said.

"This is a principle for us. The nine factions in the committee meeting three weeks ago agreed to stop it, because the committee VIII asked for it to be stopped, today we invited the government to convey the position of Commission VIII," he continued.

Yandri then explained the government's reason for stopping the discussion of the Disaster Management Bill. He said the government wanted the mention of BNPB only through a presidential regulation.

"Earlier, it was explained that according to the government, there is no need to mention the BNPB institution, it is enough through a presidential regulation, for us this is crucial, while we know that every day there are disasters, every day there are non-natural and natural disasters," he explained.

Yandri assessed that BNPB coordination would be weak if only through a presidential regulation.

"If it is only as a presidential regulation or an ad hoc body, of course the coordination and execution power in our opinion is very weak. Meanwhile, in the current law, BNPB has shown its expertise in dealing with disasters. back down. That's what we don't want, so there's no common ground yet," he said.

The following is the result of the decision of the House of Representatives-Government Commission VIII meeting regarding the Disaster Management Bill:

Commission VIII of the DPR and the Indonesian government decided to stop the discussion of the Bill on Disaster Management because there was no agreement on the institutional nomenclature of BNPB.

Disaster management that the institutional nomenclature of BNPB is explicitly mentioned in the Draft Disaster Management Bill, while the government does not want to mention it explicitly and further regulation of this institution will be regulated in a presidential regulation to provide flexibility to the president.