REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Ministry of Transportation would increase safety budget by 25 percent in 2016 in order to improve the level of transport safety. Minister Ignasius Jonan said the safety budget will be focused on flight safety, mostly for navigation systems and so on.
"Next year we will increase by 20 to 25 percent of the total budget," said Minister of Transportation, Ignasius Jonan, in Jakarta, Tuesday (15/9).
He said he would keep raising the safety budget, despite the addition of the budget for next year was threatened not to be approved by Commission V of House of Representatives, considering the low budget absorption in Ministry of Transportation.
"If it doesn't be approved, then we'll work with the existing budget," he added.
Until August 2015, Jonan said budget absorption of Ministry of Transportation only reached 18.6 percent, or not yet a half of the target until the end of 2015. Jonan said the low budget absorption was because the provision of a project by using e-catalog in which there was no down payment required in advance.
"I think all ministries will be difficult to absorb the budget. We will see whether in the second half there will be much absorbed," he said.
Jonan said that of the total state budget in 2015 amounted to Rp 65 trillion allocated to the Ministry of Transportation, 80 percent of the project contract has been signed.