Pekanbaru, The Indonesia Post – Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Muhammad Tito Karnavian urged local governments (Pemda) to immediately optimize the use of unexpected spending (BTT) and social assistance (Bansos) in the remainder of the 2022 budget year.
Based on data obtained from the Directorate General (Directorate General) of Regional Financial Development (Keuda) of the Ministry of Home Affairs as of November 4, 2022, the total BTT budget allocation throughout Indonesia is Rp. 17,515.82 trillion, but only 12.74 percent or Rp. 2,231, 68 trillion.
“This unexpected expenditure has not been fully utilized by all provinces, regencies/cities,” said the Minister of Home Affairs in Pekanbaru, Tuesday.
He said the use of BTT at the provincial level had only been realized 6.25 percent or Rp. 611.60 billion. Meanwhile, at the district level it was only 22.62 percent or Rp. 1,302.32 trillion, and at the city level it was only 16.09 percent or Rp. 317.76 billion.
He stated that some of these funds were reserved for activities related to disaster emergencies, but a letter has been issued, both from the Ministry of Finance and from ourselves (Kemendagri), (that the regions) can use (BTT) to deal with inflation.
The use of BTT to control inflation is one of the interventions using financial instruments. Moreover, in the remainder of the 2022 fiscal year, there are still BTTs that have not been optimized.
“This BTT can be used to carry out interventions, the instrument from regional heads to intervene in controlling inflation, apart from the regulation, is a financial instrument. And this is where we ask for your help to take full advantage of this BTT,” said the Minister of Home Affairs.
Referring to the same data source, the realization of social assistance is also considered still far from expectations. Of the total budget of Rp 12,452.58 trillion, only 49.51 percent or Rp 6,164.73 trillion has been realized.
“What do you want to do (the remaining funds in the remaining period of the fiscal year) one and a half months, to become SiLPA? Even though the people need it,” he said.
It is known that the realization of social assistance at the provincial level is only 51.27 percent, while at the district/city level the achievement is still below 50 percent of the total budget. For the new district level, 47.86 percent have been realized, and 46.44 percent for the city have only been realized.
On the other hand, the Minister of Home Affairs also asked regions that did not budget for social assistance in the 2022 budget year, to budget for it in the 2023 fiscal year. Given that the social assistance budget allocation can be used to help the community in unpredictable situations, such as due to current inflation.
“We ask that the Provinces of West Sumatra, South Sumatra, include (other regions) that do not budget for this social assistance, so that when a situation occurs that we do not expect due to inflation. The increase in the price of goods requires intervention to the people who can’t afford it, we already have financial instruments (for ) to help underprivileged communities,” he said. (mhn/bbs)
Comment