The government has realized Rp58.9 trillion for community protection clusters using the COVID-19 handling budget and the National Economic Recovery (PC-PEN) for the Fiscal Year 2022, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, stated.
This was part of his report submitted to President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) while attending a limited meeting on the evaluation of the community activity restriction (PPKM) at the State Palace, Jakarta, Monday.
“For public protection, the budget realization is already amounting to Rp58.9 trillion, or 38 percent of the ceiling,” Minister Hartarto noted in a press statement after attending the limited meeting.
The community protection cluster includes the Family Hope Program (PKH), Direct Cash Assistance (BLT) for cooking oil, Village BLT, cash assistance for street vendors, stalls, and fishermen, as well as Pre-Employment Cards aimed at maintaining the people’s purchasing power due to the pandemic and rising prices.
Specifically for the Pre-Employment Card, Hartarto remarked that the program had realized a budget of Rp5.6 trillion, which included 1.57 million beneficiary participants.
“Meanwhile, the realization for health care is Rp28 trillion, or 24 percent,” the minister noted.
He later explained that the health care cluster included patient claims, labor incentives, health tax incentives, and village funds for COVID-19. Meanwhile, for strengthening the economic recovery cluster, the budget realization has reached 17 percent. This cluster includes labor-intensive programs, tourism, food security, industrial estates, as well as support for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Indonesia has set PC-PEN for the Fiscal Year 2022 at a total of Rp455.62 trillion.
PC-PEN is one of the government’s efforts in handling the pandemic and for economic recovery, especially for a vulnerable group of people, through several programs in three main clusters.
In detail, the PC-PEN 2022 allocation is in the form of Rp178.32 trillion for the economic recovery cluster, Rp154.76 trillion for community protection, and Rp122.54 trillion for health care.
Source: Antara News