"The savings reflect a positive shift from the consumption sector to the productive sector."Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Ministry of Finance has allocated the savings made from reduced travel expenses to the provision and improvement of infrastructure and other important facilities, such as patrol vehicles, needed in the institution.
"We have cut the budget for travel and used the surplus to purchase some patrol ships and cars, as well as some X-ray tools," the finance ministry`s general secretary, Kiagus Ahmad Badaruddin, said here on Thursday.
"The savings are aimed at improving the performance of the ministry, which has more than a thousand working units," he stated.
"The Ministry of Finance has four directorate generals, some of whose working units are located in remote areas. Therefore, we bought some vehicles in order to improve accessibility to these remote areas," Badaruddin explained.
He said the ministry planned to buy 48 cars, worth a total of Rp20 billion, for the Directorate General of Taxation.
"That way, there will be enough suitable vehicles for the Directorate General of Taxation, many of whose units are situated in steep or rugged terrain, such as in oil palm plantations and other remote eastern regions of Indonesia," Badaruddin noted.
He said the Ministry of Finance had managed to cut the budget for travel by 23 percent, making savings of more than Rp200 billion.
"The savings reflect a positive shift from the consumption sector to the productive sector," he pointed out.
"Previously, the Budget Board of House of Representatives and the government had agreed on cutting travel expenses by up to 15 percent and reallocating the savings to capital expenditure," Badaruddin said.
The proposal of cutting travel expenses came after the Supreme Audit Agency reported 259 cases of wrongful manipulation of official travel budgets during the first half of 2012.
"Such cases cost the state a total of around Rp77 billion," Badaruddin stated.
(U.Y012/INE/KR-BSR/H-YH)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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