Subsidized Fuel Supply In Indonesia Enjoys Many 'Kaya', Menkeu Expresss The Data

Illustration of fuel supply (Pixabay)

YOGYAKARTA The type of Solar and Pertalite fuel supply that was originally intended for certain people was not right on target. The reason is, the type of bbm subsidized by the government is actually enjoyed by the rich. This is as revealed by the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia, Sri Mulyani.

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani explained, 86 percent of subsidized fuel is purchased by the people, so the poor only enjoy the subsidy budget which has a value of trillions of rupiah for energy.

"So the poor, from the hundreds of trillion subsidies, he only enjoyed very small," explained the Minister of Finance during a working meeting of Committee IV DPD with the Minister of Finance, Bappenas, and Bank Indonesia, Thursday, August 25.

He gave an example of Pertalite consumption which turned out to be consumed by 30 percent of the richest people. Not only that, but the diesel subsidized by the government is also enjoyed by 40 percent of the richest people.

Quoted from Tempo, Wednesday, August 31, based on data from the National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas) of the Central Statistics Agency, Pertalite's total compensation allocation is IDR 93.5 trillion taken from the state budget. Of this figure, 86 percent or IDR 80.4 trillion is enjoyed by households. While the remaining 14 percent or IDR 13.1 trillion is enjoyed by the business world.

However, it should be noted that of the Rp80.4 trillion enjoyed by households, 80 percent of them are capable households. The rest of them, of course, are not able to afford households.

The same thing happened to Solar. The subsidy disbursed reached Rp. 143.4 trillion. Of this amount, 11 percent or Rp. 15 trillion is enjoyed by households, the remaining 89 percent or Rp. 127.6 trillion is enjoyed by the business world.

Meanwhile, from the household category, 95 percent of them are capable households, the remaining 5 percent are lower-class households.

As a result of the wrong subsidized fuel supply, the state budget is increasingly burdened. In fact, the government stated that the subsidy budget continues to increase, exacerbated by the high price of world oil.

As a solution, the Government plans to transfer fuel subsidies to be distributed to the public in the form of cash social assistance. The transfer of fuel subsidies to social assistance is set at Rp24.17 trillion.

"This is expected to reduce, of course, pressure on the community, and even reduce poverty, so that we can provide support to people who are faced with pressure on price increases," said Sri Mulyani, Tuesday, August 30.

From the Rp24.17 trillion budget, the government provided three types of social assistance. First, Cash Direct Assistance (BLT) which is intended for 20.65 million community groups. Later, the community will receive Rp150 thousand four times, with a total budget of Rp12.4 trillion.

The second aid is a wage subsidy for workers. Later, 16 million workers with a maximum salary of IDR 3.5 million per month will each receive IDR 600 thousand with a budget of IDR 9.6 trillion.

The third aid is assistance from local governments which is taken from two percent of public transfer funds, namely General Allocation Funds and Revenue Sharing Funds of Rp2.17 trillion. This assistance will target workers in the transportation sector such as public transportation, motorcycle taxis, fishermen and additional social protection assistance.

Although the subsidized fuel supply reduction signal continues to be revealed, the policy related to this has not been officially announced. Keep monitoring VOI.ID to get other interesting information.