Rocky Gerung Senggol Sri Mulyani Regarding Commodity Boom: Hundreds Of Trillions But Poverty Is Still High

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA – Public intellectual figure Rocky Gerung assesses that the commodity boom that will occur throughout 2021 will not have a significant impact on people's welfare. In fact, he believes that the opposite is the case because the poverty rate continues to grow.

“Sri Mulyani said we have an excess of IDR 400 trillion in commodity export money, so why is there poverty in Java? This means that the state has failed to share social justice," he said on the Rocky Gerung Official Youtube channel, quoted on Saturday, May 7.

According to Rocky, this condition further strengthens the indication that commodity money is only enjoyed by a handful of groups and barely trickles down to the lower classes of society.

"When there is profit but the people suffer, it means that the profit falls to other groups. And if it doesn't fall to the people, then to the oligarchy. So the oligarchs are getting more profitable, the people are getting worse," he said.

For information, the performance of state revenues over the past year was quite encouraging. In fact, the revenue sector exceeded the target with a realization of IDR 2,003 trillion or 114.9 percent of the 2021 APBN ceiling of IDR 1,743.6 trillion.

In detail, this notch was supported by tax revenues of Rp1,277.5 trillion or 103.9 percent of the 2021 APBN target of Rp1,229.6 trillion.

Then, customs and excise revenues reached IDR 269 trillion or 125.1 percent of the target set at IDR 215 trillion.

Then, non-tax state revenues (PNBP) recorded Rp.452 trillion or increased 151.6 percent from the 2021 ceiling of Rp.298.2 trillion. This PNBP record does not escape the levies from the commodity sector, which experienced price increases last year.

"So we have to open this issue so that there are no lies between us. Meanwhile, the ambition to finance the capital will be charged to the state budget. That's not fair. The state budget should be a tool to generate prosperity, not for elite investment," concluded Rocky Gerung.