As much as possible, we will try to keep the 2022-2023 budget year cash labor-intensive program from possible refocusing
Jakarta (ANTARA) - The 2022 budget year cash labor-intensive program is targeting to absorb 665 thousand workers, Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) Minister Basuki Hadimuljono has said.

"The implementation of the program will be carried out through community empowerment, self-management, or contracts with a total budget ceiling of Rp13.64 trillion," he stated at a meeting with Commission V of the Indonesian House of Representatives here on Thursday.

According to the minister, the program plan comprises water resources, roads and bridges, settlement, as well as housing construction.

The water resources sector, which will be allocated Rp4.85 trillion, is targeted to absorb 335 thousand workers, while the roads and bridges sector, which will be allocated Rp4.50 trillion, is expected to employ 69 thousand people, he informed.

Furthermore, Rp1.84 trillion will be provided for the settlement sector, which is targeted to absorb 56 thousand employees, while Rp2.45 trillion will be prepared for the housing sector to generate jobs for 205 thousand workers, he added.

"As much as possible, we will try to keep the 2022-2023 budget year cash labor-intensive program from possible refocusing," said the minister.

The realization of the cash labor-intensive program budget in 2021 has reached Rp14.37 trillion, or 61.83 percent of the total budget of Rp23.24 trillion, Hadimuljono said.

The physical realization has been 58.7 percent, while the current employment progress has reached 899,031 people, or 72.93 percent of the total workforce absorption target of 1.23 million people, he added.

Earlier, the PUPR ministry had empowered more than 35 thousand workers through a cash-intensive program by constructing sanitation facilities for Islamic boarding schools.

Hadimuljono said the program was implemented by developing small-scale public infrastructure that involved local residents as development actors.

The sanitation provision program was aimed to build safe, comfortable, clean, and healthy education facilities as well as maintain people's purchasing power amid the pandemic; thus, the benefits managed to contribute directly to the national economic recovery program, the minister said.


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Translator: Aji Cakti, Uyu Liman
Editor: Suharto
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