"Please, consolidate and identify the cause of underwhelming realization rates," the ministry's acting secretary-general Tomsi Tohir told regional leaders while chairing a coordination meeting on regional inflation control in Jakarta on Monday.
In his office's statement cited here, Tohir highlighted that the budget realization rates of several regions were still stuck at a low level, including the provinces of South Papua, Southwest Papua, Highland Papua, South Kalimantan, and Central Sulawesi.
He remarked that a similar trend is also evident in several districts and cities, namely Mahakam Ulu, North Halmahera, Bintang Mountains, East Kutai, Aru Islands, Prabumulih, Pagar Alam, Bontang, and Subulussalam.
On that note, the official urged the governments of the aforementioned regions to take effective and efficient measures to shoot up their APBD realization rates to a preferred level.
Related news: Home Minister rebukes regions with low budget realization
During the meeting, Tohir also appealed to district and municipal governments to tap into fallow lands to ramp up agricultural productivity.
The secretary-general assessed that making the most of such idle lands is economically more efficient than creating new agricultural plots.
In view of this, he suggested that regional governments collect data on their potential fallow lands. The data will be forwarded to the Coordinating Ministry for Food for further measures to boost crop production.
He then emphasized the need for regions to identify issues that might hinder the optimization of such lands, including the lack of water due to unreliable irrigation infrastructure.
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Translator: Narda M, Tegar Nurfitra
Editor: Yuni Arisandy Sinaga
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