House Speaker Marzuki Alie, in his opening remarks of the House`s 2010-2011 Sitting Session here on Monday, said that the inflation rate in 2010 had reached 6.96 percent.
He quoted data released by the Central Board of Statistics (BPS) early this month. The figure of 6.96 percent inflation based on the BPS data has far exceeded the inflation target set by the government at 5.3 percent for 2010.
"The increase in the prices of basic necessaries such as food and agricultural commodities is quite saddening," the House Speaker said.
In connection with that problem, the House urged the government and Bank Indonesia (BI/the central bank), to intensively manage causes of inflation.
"This problem will clearly affect small people whose income is low and could hardly make both end meet," Marzuki Alie said.
The people`s purchasing power will decline and because they are not able to buy basic necessities the quality of their life will also be declining, he said.
What is more saddening is the possibility of the ever-widening of social gap as a result of inflation.
Regarding the implementation of the 2010 state budget, the House Speaker noted that most of the allocation of the budget was used to pay debts, subsidies and expenditure for civil servants.
However, he said, the House appreciates the government for its 2011 budget where it had raised its capital expenditure allocation such as for infrastructure development.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
