REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) admitted that the force of Indonesian military was still far below the minimum required. Hence, the Ministry of Defense needs to use the budget wisely to modernize its weaponry.

"The power of Indonesian National Forces is below the minimum essential force (MEF)," SBY said on Thursday. MEF is the minimum main power that should have been contained by Indonesian forces. SBY said that it had been long time since Indonesia modernized it weaponry and bought new defense equipment.

The army task, he said, was not only war, but also many other military operations, such as disaster management, maintaining peace, and even eradicating corruption. He added that government was now able to modernize the defense equipments as Indonesian economy showed positive trend.

"The most important thing is that we can enhance the establishment of power and modernize our defense equipment because our economy grows well," he said.

The Ministry of Defense confirmed that the number of Indonesian weaponry was still low because before 2010 Indonesia had not built defense equipment. The Head of Public Communication in the Ministry of Defense Hartind Asrin explained that Indonesia started to build and modernize defense equipment on the Strategic Plan 2010-2014.

The building of weaponry system used 156 trillion IDR. The army has not much published its weaponry to public, but in the end of 2012, a number of defense equipments are coming to Indonesia, such as CN-295. "We will have F-16 on 2013 and submarine on 2015," Asrin said.

The Deputy Speaker of Commission I in House of Representatives, TB Hasanuddin, said the biggest problem of Indonesian military was its armament. "They even still use the weapons made in 1943," he said.

The low quality cannot be separated from government's limited budget. The current defense budget is only 70 trillion IDR, far below its ideal number, 300 trillion IDR.

Hasanuddin hopes government can fulfill its MEF program."Without it, Indonesia will be overwhelming to protect the country from foreign attack," he said.

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