Ahead Of The Closing Of The Year, The Government Has Paid For The Claim Of COVID-19 Patients Amounting To Rp27.6 Trillion

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani emphasized that the government is still covering the costs of COVID-19 patients. According to her, the source of the funds came from the 2022 State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN).

"As of December 9, 2022, the government has paid claims for COVID-19 patients of Rp. 27.6 trillion," he said when giving an explanation of the realization of the state budget, quoted Monday, December 26.

The Minister of Finance explained that specifically this budget was included in the National Economic Recovery (PEN) fund, which was the last period with a total allocation of health clusters of IDR 54.2 trillion.

"In addition to paying patient costs, the health cluster also bears vaccinations that have reached IDR 2.9 trillion for 60.1 million doses and also research costs related to the pandemic worth IDR 205.1 billion," he said.

Furthermore, the state treasurer also conveyed incentives and compensation for health workers (nakes) at the central and regional levels that had absorbed Rp3.4 trillion.

Then, tax incentives for the health sector amounted to Rp1.8 trillion consisting of vaccine import facilities of Rp1.1 trillion, medical device import facilities of Rp300 billion, and value added tax (VAT) borne by the government of Rp400 billion.

"APBN also supports the regional budget (APBD) in handling COVID-19, which is now realized at IDR 15.1 trillion," he said.

In addition to the health cluster, two other clusters in the 2022 PEN are the community protection cluster which is absorbed IDR 148 trillion (95 percent of the target) and the economic recovery cluster IDR 128 trillion (72 percent of the target).

"The performance of the 2022 PEN is encouraged by the community protection cluster and still needs to strengthen economic recovery so that it can continue to process properly," closed the Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani.