For Service To Demak, Sri Mulyani Likens The State Budget As A Car Shockbeaker While Insinuating Ganjar Pranowo About The Uneven Roads In Central Java

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani (Photo: screenshot of the Ministry of Finance Youtube)

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani today made a working visit to Central Java in order to socialize the new tax rules. One of the Minister of Finance's agenda is to disseminate to prominent taxpayers related to the regulation of the Harmonization of Tax Regulations (HPP).

When giving the material, the state treasurer made a sarcastic remark to the Governor of Central Java, Ganjar Pranowo, who happened to be present at the event.

“Earlier, I walked from here to Demak a number of times. Thank you very much Mr. Gub. It's like national roads, provincial roads, or district roads and I can feel it in my car," he said through a virtual channel on Thursday, March 10.

The Minister of Finance then connected the incident experienced with the role of the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN). He said, the state budget is like a car shock breaker that tries to withstand the shocks it receives.

"Like facing this shock, the APBN is a shock breaker that holds back any pressure that occurs," he said.

For this reason, the state treasurer reminded the importance of maintaining the state budget so that it can become a reliable instrument in dealing with the dynamics that occur.

“Just like in a car, the shockbreaker must always be maintained. If the shockbreaker is not working then all the shocks directly hit the passenger. For this reason, we must take care of the state budget together with its health and must not continue to be exploited and not to become a source of disease in the economy, "said the Minister of Finance.

According to VOI's records, the state's financial performance earlier this year showed quite a resounding achievement. This is evidenced by the surplus in the state budget in January 2022, which amounted to Rp. 28.9 trillion.

This result was obtained from higher state revenues than the expenditure sector with Rp. 156 trillion compared to Rp. 127.2 trillion.

The book was also noted to be in stark contrast when compared to January 2021, which had a deficit of IDR 45.5 trillion.