TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo said Indonesia had been wasteful on state budget for years. “We’re always trapped in fuel subsidy profligacy,” said Joko Widodo on Friday, November 7, 2014.
He said the funds for fuel subsidy over five years ago reached Rp714 trillion, whereas subsidies for other sectors were relatively much smaller. In the last five years, Indonesia only budgeted Rp220 trillion for health and Rp574 trillion for infrastructure.
According to Jokowi, the amount of state budget five years ago was a wasteful spending that needs to be solved. “Are we wasteful? Yes, we are. Everyday we burn, burn and burn that we don’t realize that we have wasted so much money,” he said.
In response to this, Jokowi said, the government already had plans to stop wasteful energy subsidy by shifting subsidies from consumptive sectors to more productive sectors.
He explained the government wanted to shift subsidies for the development of infrastructure, such as seaports, railway tracks and agriculture. “We will shift to agriculture, seeds for farmers, fertilizers for farmers, irrigation and reservoirs.”
MAYA NAWANGWULAN
