Industry ministry should get moving: House

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Tue, 05/22/2007 8:13 AM

Andi Haswidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A House of Representatives commission is urging the Industry Ministry to speed up its industrial development programs as a result of the progress achieved up to May 15.

The tardy implementation of programs was revealed in a report from the ministry during a hearing with the House trade and industry commission Monday. The report stated that ministry spending only amounted to 12.97 percent so far from the total of Rp 1.899 trillion allocated for this year.

""The Ministry needs to fast-track the implementation of its programs in order so as to improve effectiveness,"" commission deputy chairperson Lili Asudiredja said during the hearing.

As of May 15, the ministry had disbursed Rp 246.257 billion for capital programs designed to help stimulate the real sector. This figure accounted for about 12.97 percent of the ministry's total budget allocation for the year.

Of the disbursed funds, Rp 43.6 billion was spend on the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Program, Rp 37.4 billion on the Industrial Technology Advancement Program and Rp 51.3 billion on the Industrial Restructuring Program. These are the ministry's three main programs for 2007.

The full-year budget for the SME Development Program had actually been increased to Rp 456.1 billion from last year's Rp 282 billion in the hope that it would encourage the strengthening of the sector.

While admitting that spending had been slow, Secretary-General Agus Tjahjana robustly defended his ministry's record. ""All of the planned projects had to be put out to tender, while we have not paid for many ongoing projects as they have still to be completed.""

""In addition, there were workshops and training programs that cannot yet be held as we are waiting for needs assessments from third parties, which, once again, have to be put out to tender.""

When asked how the ministry proposed to accelerate spending, Agus said that he would review the schedules for all of the ministry's development programs.

""We are targeting faster spending. I think spending will peak in August or September. By the middle of October, we should have spend about 90 percent of our budget,"" he predicted.

He added that weak coordination with other ministries and local governments had also played a significant role in holding up spending.

""We plan to address this issue in the near future,"" he said.

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