Government Asked To Press Regions To Realize Expenditures During The Emergency PPKM Period

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Economist Observer Center of Reform on Economics (​CORE) Indonesia, Yusuf Rendy Manilet, believes that the central government can encourage the realization of state spending involving local governments.

According to him, these efforts can help move the wheels of the economy in the midst of the current Emergency Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM).

"The thing that really needs to be paid attention to is how the realization of government spending in the regions is because there are still some expenditure posts that still need to be optimized", he told VOI, Friday, July 23.

Rendy added that he noted that the absorption of regional spending was still quite low. This of course reduces the effectiveness of proper management of the state budget, considering that around 30 percent of this year's APBN is funds channeled to the regions.

"I think if we refer to the performance of government spending that was conveyed in the PPKM evaluation, then the level of effectiveness could be even better if the use of funds by the regional government could be more aggressive", he said.

For information, the budget allocation for transfers to regions and village funds in the 2021 APBN reaches IDR 795.5 trillion.

Meanwhile, until the first semester of 2021, the realization of the transfer from the center is known to have touched IDR 373.9 trillion, or 47 percent of the budget ceiling provided. To note, this regional budget also includes spending on economic recovery in the area.

Of the IDR 25.46 trillion allocated for economic recovery in the regions, until June 2021 the amount that has been realized has only been IDR 4.71 trillion or 18 percent of the ceiling. This shows that the absorption of spending in the regions to support economic acceleration is quite low.