BLBI Task Force Asks For Additional Budget, Sri Mulyani's Subordinates Denies Being Used For Additional Salaries: This Is For Our Operations

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Director General of State Assets of the Ministry of Finance, as well as the Chair of the Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance Task Force (BLBI), Rionald Silaban explained his reasons for asking the Minister of Finance for an additional operational budget, Sri Mulyani. The budget will be used to maximize his duties.

Rionald explained that the additional funds were used for the confiscation process, which turned out to be costly. For example, for officers in charge of confiscation. Then, preparations to fight the obligor who sued the confiscation of assets to the court.

"We have spoken with the Minister (Sri Mulyani) specifically for operations. If we confiscate, we must prepare the apparatus and prepare ourselves in terms of lawsuits and all kinds," he said at a virtual press conference, Friday, January 28.

Rio denied that the additional budget he proposed was for the salaries of the members of the BLBI Task Force. According to him, the operational costs of the BLBI Task Force are not commensurate with their work.

"I'm not asking for a salary increase. But this is for our operations. I said 2021 is a small budget because we haven't really imagined how big this activity will be," he explained.

Previously, the proposal to increase the budget was submitted by Rionald in a joint meeting with Commission XI of the House of Representatives in charge of Finance, on Wednesday, January 26.

For your information, while on duty the BLBI Task Force has collected confiscated assets with a total of IDR 15.11 trillion. This number jumped quite high from the book until December 31, 2021, which was valued at Rp. 9.82 trillion.

In a statement, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD said a fairly significant contribution was obtained from the Texmaco Group in the amount of Rp. 1.9 trillion. This figure is the second confiscation for Texmaco after previously the seizure of 4.7 million square meters of land in the first phase at the end of last year.

"If the BLBI Task Force works on an average of seven months, then every month there are around Rp. 2 trillion in assets confiscated by the state from obligors and debtors," he said during a press conference today, Thursday, January 20.

Despite showing good progress, the Task Force's work is quite heavy. The reason is, there are around Rp. 110 trillion in state receivables that must be collected from the evaders of the central bank bailout. Moreover, the lifespan of the BLBI Task Force is planned only until the end of 2023.

"Anyway, everything will be accounted for at the end of 2023," said Mahfud.