Ministries' Programs Overlap, APBN Is Considered Not On Target

Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance

JAKARTA - Economic observer from Diponegoro University (Undip) Semarang, Esther Sri Astuti, highlighted the statement by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto who called the state budget's impressive performance as a shock absorber an important instrument to protect the people in pushing for national economic recovery.

Esther encourages the government to have efficient and targeted spending as an effort to optimize the state budget.

"Often the programs between ministries overlap. The regional center programs are also double-double. Therefore, the expenditure budget is not only inefficient, but also not on target," said Esther, Thursday, January 19.

Apart from that, according to Esther, there are obstacles in the disbursement of central funds to the regions. This is because the disbursement of the state budget is always late due to the relatively complex bureaucracy.

"So if the government encourages healthy fiscal spending from the start, then these obstacles must be overcome," explained Esther.

For this reason, Esther suggested the government provide measurable targets such as the Key Performance Index (KPI).

"It should be linked to the KPI targets of each agency, for example, a poverty rate of 7 percent, a reduced unemployment rate, employment of 4 million per year, and so on," he said.

Previously, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto stated that the state budget's impressive performance as a shock absorber had become an important instrument to protect the people in pushing for national economic recovery.

The impressive performance of the 2022 State Budget can be seen in the deficit at 2.38 percent of the target of 4.5 percent and state revenue of 115.9 percent of the target or growing 30.6 percent.

Then for 2023, the Coordinating Minister for Airlangga reminded that the State Budget will still act as a shock absorber to maintain the recovery momentum.

One of them, he asked regional heads to optimize central and regional spending to increase the use of domestic production (P3DN) which is an important factor in increasing economic growth.

"And, in 2023, even though a third of the world's economy is experiencing problems or crises, Indonesia is said to be still quite optimistic about growth, it is hoped that it will be in the range of 4.7-5.3 percent," said the Coordinating Minister for Airlangga.

APBN Assessed Not Yet Able To Restore The Economy

Meanwhile, the Director of the Center for Budget Analysis (CBA) Uchok Sky Gaddafi, assessed that the state budget has not been able to restore the economy. According to him, the distribution of the state budget must be even if the government really wants to restore the national economy.

On the other hand, according to Uchok, as a shock absorber, APBN revenues from taxes should not burden the people. This is because this year's state budget is very burdensome for the people with the imposition of taxes that reach 70 percent of total state revenues. According to him, there is a shortage with revenues of IDR 2,463 trillion, but spending of IDR 3,061 trillion.

"The APBN is irrational, because they know it is difficult to find fresh funds to accelerate economic recovery," said Uchok.

National State Expenditure in the 2023 APBN was agreed at IDR 3,061.2 trillion, which was allocated through Central Government Expenditures of IDR 2,246.5 trillion.

According to Uchok, economic recovery will be realized if the budget is not centralized at the center, but evenly distributed to the regions. This is because in terms of the structure of the state budget, in terms of equal distribution of spending, IDR 814,718.5 trillion was sent to the regions, while the remaining IDR 1,648,306.4 trillion was spent by the central government.

"This pattern reflects the central government's lack of trust in regional governments. So that around 66 percent of money circulates in Jakarta, which has a population of 11 million, and 33 percent for regions with a population of 265 million," he concluded.