Malang, (malangkota.go.id) – The central government through the Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri) is trying to encourage regional governments, both at the provincial and district/city levels, to take steps to accelerate the absorption of the 2021 APBD. One of the efforts made is to hold a coordination meeting to accelerate the realization of the provincial, district/city APBD for the 2021 fiscal year.

Deputy Mayor of Malang, Ir. H. Sofyan Edi Jarwoko represented Malang City in the activity carried out via video conference from Ngalam Command Canter (NCC), Tuesday (25/5/2021).
In addition to encouraging regions to accelerate the realization of the APBD, Minister of Home Affairs (Mendagri) Muhammad Tito Karnavian also reminded that Indonesia is currently trying to carry out economic recovery. This is because the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a fairly deep contraction in all countries and in the economic and financial sectors. Not only Indonesia, almost all countries are experiencing a slowdown in economic growth.
"This economic recovery is very important. Two issues that are challenging for heads of state around the world are how to control the Covid-19 pandemic and how to save the economy, because without a good economy, in addition to increasing health capacity to control the pandemic, it is difficult to implement but will also have social impacts," Tito explained.
The Minister of Home Affairs conveyed the President's direction targeting national economic growth in the second quarter of 2021 to be above 7 percent. This target can only be achieved if all government stakeholders boost economic growth.
Based on existing data, several regions in Indonesia were able to survive by showing positive economic growth, such as Papua at 14,28 percent, North Maluku at 12,45 percent, and Central Sulawesi at 6,26 percent. There are also other regions that are still showing positive growth, namely Yogyakarta, North Sulawesi, West Papua, Bangka Belitung, Riau, East Nusa Tenggara, and Southeast Sulawesi.
"But other provinces are still experiencing negative economic growth, especially the deepest is Bali -9,85 percent because Bali is very dependent on the tourism sector. We want national economic growth to move at 7-8 percent," he continued.
This national economic growth can be achieved through cooperation between the central and regional governments. All must move together and government spending becomes the main backbone to boost economic growth and attract the private sector. Therefore, government spending is very important to be immediately disbursed and spent.
Tito emphasized that in 2021, the government is setting the rhythm of spending targets per three months, especially the policy from the center to boost spending realization in the second quarter. So it is hoped that the center and regions will encourage spending acceleration in April, May, and June.
"From the data we have obtained, at the national level there are several regions whose spending realization is still below 20 percent until May. When compared to 2020, the spending realization in May 2020 we spent more than IDR 280 trillion for the combined provinces and regencies/cities or equivalent to 20,58 percent of the APBD," he said again.
"But what happened as of May 15, 2021, we had only reached 19,67 percent, even though there was a significant increase from April to May," explained the man who once served as the Chief of Police.
When viewed from the realization of each province, until now there are more provinces that have not reached 20 percent. The provinces with the realization of 2021 APBD spending are Aceh and West Papua. For the district/city level, the highest realization of spending is Cianjur Regency which reached 34,74 percent, while the lowest is Landak Regency which is still 4,42 percent.
"At the national level it is quite good, from the ministry/institution spending is also quite good. The problem is at the regional level. We have communicated with various regions to find out what the causes or obstacles are so that the realization of spending is not according to target," explained the former Chief of Police.
There are several problems, including the remaining funds for savings/implementation of activity programs for previous year's spending that have not been utilized, the excess of the regional tax and regional retribution targets for the 2020 budget year, the non-distribution of provincial tax revenues to districts/cities, the non-payment of obligations to third parties from last year's budget. However, the budget year has closed so it becomes a surplus that will be resolved in the following year.
Several other issues faced, such as the ongoing audit process from the BPK RI, indications of cash stored in public banks, still waiting for the completion of planning activities, budget reallocation by local governments for handling Covid-19, change of regional heads in 2020, and concerns of regional heads in spending the APBD in the pandemic era which has implications for legal problems. (ari/ram)