REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the state budget (APBN) should serve as an instrument to ensure equity and justice for all the Indonesian people.
"The theme of the State Budget is to create more equity and justice," she stated, after attending the 72nd Independence anniversary celebrations of Indonesia in Jakarta, Friday.
Sri Mulyani explained that to realize equity and justice, the APBN allocates adequate expenditure to support the improvement and welfare of the underprivileged.
"To help the low-income people, subsidies in the form of non-cash aid are being raised, as are village funds, while special physical allocation funds have been provided to address grassroots poverty," she noted.
In addition to these, to make social spending more effective, budget leaks in allocations for poverty and inequality improvement should be minimized, the minister added.
"The challenge is to make a design that will prevent leaks and reach the people in need," Sri Mulyani remarked.
Sri Mulyani added that the development of infrastructure also played an important role in the poverty alleviation efforts for the poor to have access to sources of economic activity.
"Infrastructure can help them stay connected to the market, so that they can have sustainable economic activity," she stressed.
Earlier, President Joko Widodo in his state speech, emphasized that the government was committed to maintaining sound and sustainable fiscal management, with a focus on national development priorities by 2018.
The priority focuses are on infrastructure development, poverty reduction, reduction in people's income gap and regional development gap, as well as the expansion of employment opportunities.
Economic growth and employment opportunities are expected to be achieved through increased investment, which will be pursued through the ease of licensing and improving the investment climate with the use of the state budget as a catalyst, as well as a driver of development.
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