Buanaangkasa.com-Jakarta:
Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani Indrawati emphasized that the preparation of the 2023 Regional Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBD) is directed at and line with the direction of fiscal policy and national priority programs.
“I beg you, ladies and gentlemen, to pay attention to national priorities and how the APBD will be prepared to be in line with these priorities,” said the Minister of Finance at the Coordinating Meeting for the Direction of Regional Heads, at the Sasana Bhakti Praja Building, Ministry of Home Affairs, Jakarta, Thursday (16/06/ 2022).
The national priority programs include managing the quality of human resources (HR), infrastructure development, bureaucratic reform, industrial revitalization, and environmentally friendly development or a green economy.
The Minister of Finance said that his party also focused on efforts to improve regional financial management, including the management of regional expenditures. He revealed that in the past 11 years, all components of regional expenditures have continued to increase, starting from personnel expenditures, goods and services expenditures, capital goods expenditures, and other regional expenditures.
“Over the past 11 years, regional spending has steadily increased. In 2011 the transfer from the center was only around Rp. 450 trillion, now it is Rp. 770 trillion,” said the Minister of Finance.
Sri Mulyani also emphasized the need to improve the composition and accelerate the realization of regional budgets.
“Our APBD is facing the problem of slowing down the realization of spending,” he said.
In addition, the Minister of Finance also asked local governments (Pemda) to improve the quality of their budgeting in a more precise and accountable manner. The Minister of Finance emphasized that his party is ready to assist and cooperate with local governments in solving regional financial problems. This is in line with the mandate of Law Number 1 of 2022 concerning Financial Relations between the Central Government and Regional Governments (HKPD).
“Reforming spending in the regions will continue to be the center of our attention. Of course, the role of ladies and gentlemen is important, how do we increase or improve the quality of our budgeting, allocate the budget more precisely, and how to improve its human resources. Including in the financial sector in the regions, we will be ready to help and we can cooperate,” he said.
The Minister of Finance also advised that financial managers in the regions could continue to improve the quality of budget management and improve spending allocations as well as remain focused on improving the quality of human resources and basic infrastructure, even in the midst of dynamic world economic conditions that are not easy as it is today.
“World economic conditions provide opportunities as well as shocks that have the potential to risk. Ladies and gentlemen, your role is to keep the region stable and move forward towards what we want to achieve,” he concluded.
(Photo: Cabinet Secretariat Documentation)
(Red/UN)
