The budget allotted for health and social protection sectors will remain dominant.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati provided details of budget allotments under the Rp321.2-trillion National Economic Recovery (PEN) program in 2022.

“The budget allotted for the health and social protection sectors will remain dominant,” she stressed during a press conference here on Tuesday.

A budget of Rp77.05 trillion has been allocated for the health sector and is focused on testing, tracing, and treatment; treatment of 250 thousand COVID-19 patients under the cost-sharing plan of the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS); provision of four million COVID-19 medicine packages; and payment of health workers' incentives for 12 months, she informed.

In addition, a vaccination procurement budget, valued at Rp38.44 trillion, has been allocated for 189 million citizens, or 70 percent of the total population, under the government’s facility; self-financed vaccination of 27 million citizens; and, provision of centered-vaccination support of Rp3 trillion, the minister added.

A budget of Rp126.54 trillion that has been for the public protection sector will be utilized for the Family Hope Program (PKH), which has 10 million beneficiaries; provision of staple food cards to 18.8 million beneficiaries; pre-employment cards; job loss guarantee program support; and precautionary measures of other social protection program expansions, Indrawati said.

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A budget of Rp90.04 trillion that has been allocated for prioritized programs to support labor intensive activities, tourism, food security, ICT, and other prioritized programs, she added.

The budget allocation for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and corporations has reached Rp27.48 trillion and is aimed at supporting the MSMEs’ subsidized interest, MSMEs’ loan service fee, and corporations and MSMEs’ supporting programs and other corporations, the minister informed.

Indrawati stated that the 2022 PEN allocation is a temporary allocation of the central spending next year so it can potentially increase as the COVID-19 handling budget expands from details of allocation transferred to regions and village funds (TKDD), financing and taxation incentives.

“We need to remain taking precautionary measures akin to 2021 when we did not predict the more threatening Delta variant's appearance amid the pandemic,” she highlighted.

Referring to opinions voiced by experts, she asked the government to remain vigilant as other virus variants could possibly emerge.

“We maintain the sustainability of APBN (State Budget) in the medium to long term, so once the extraordinary needs in health and social protection sectors arise, we need to take the budget from other prioritized posts,” she outlined.

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Translator: Astrid Habibah, Juwita Trisna
Editor: Suharto
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