RI BEM Asks For Fuel Subsidy To Be Recovered For Education To Health

Photo via Antara

JAKARTA - The Student Executive Board (BEM) of the Republic of Indonesia has asked for a subsidy budget for development in various sectors needed by the poor to be a priority for transferring subsidies.

The Coordinator of the Indonesian BEM Center, Abdul Muhtar, in his statement stated that the very large energy subsidy budget allocation, IDR 502 trillion in the 2022 Fiscal Year, could be diverted to education, health, energy infrastructure development, and other productive sectors that intersect directly with the livelihoods of the poor in this country.

"The government needs to evaluate the determination of the very large energy subsidy budget. Moreover, most of the energy subsidy budget is around 80 percent enjoyed by the wealthy or rich people," said Abdul Muhtar, Thursday, September 1, quoted from Antara.

In addition, the Government must be brave and firm in reducing energy subsidies and being reallocated into budgets needed by the poor such as Social Assistance (Bansos) or Direct Cash Assistance, health facilities and education so that the state budget fund is more felt by the community.

"Align subsidies from the rich to the poor who really need them," said Muhtar.

According to him, research needs to be carried out, who really is the majority of subsidized fuel users have been, whether small people or poor groups.

Subsidized fuel, such as Pertalite, he said, the largest users up to around 80 percent are private cars or the upper middle class. Meanwhile, Pertalite users are categorized as those who can only own motorbikes of no more than 30 percent.

Muhtar stated that the increase in fuel prices was unavoidable, in order to save state finances, especially since the fuel subsidy fund for Fiscal Year 2022 will also be absorbed out in November 2022.

"If the government maintains the price of fuel and subsidized gas as it is today, which is far below the economic price, then in the upcoming 2023 FY, the government is required to "top-up" IDR 198 trillion, so the total subsidies and compensation will reach IDR 700 trillion," he said.

Regarding the impact of the increase in fuel prices, he stated that the solution that the government might be able to reach was to ease the burden of rising prices directly on the poor or the poor by diverting the budget obtained from reducing the subsidy to Social Assistance (Bansos) for the poor.