In an effort to boost infrastructure development, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in January instructed the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry to speed up its budget disbursement, which in previous years has been expedited during the final quarter.

However, the President, who took office in October 2014, has had to swallow a bitter pill as the ministry only spent 38.3 percent as of Aug. 12, far below the targeted 48 percent, of its Rp 97.8 trillion (US$7.4 billion) allocated in the revised 2016 state budget.

Infrastructure development is expected to help spur the country’s economic growth, which picked up at 5.18 percent in the second quarter this year after a slowdown last year.

The ministry’s secretary-general, Taufik Widjoyono, stated that the slow budget disbursement was mainly caused by minimal construction progress in June, following uncertainties regarding a number of projects after the government proposed budget cuts in response to shrinking state revenue.

“We were hesitant. But now we are catching up, the figure will be up again,” he said on Friday, expressing optimism about reaching the disbursement target of up to 95 percent by year-end.

Last year, the ministry recorded 94.5 percent spending of its Rp 118.5 trillion in the 2015 state budget.

Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono, meanwhile, attributed the slowdown to the recent revision of the state budget.

Government spending for ministries and institutions was cut by Rp 16.3 trillion in the revised 2016 state budget earlier this year, when tax collection had only reached a third of the full-year target despite being halfway through the year. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati also announced earlier this week that the government would slash another 65 trillion from the state budget.

Basuki’s ministry had a total of Rp 8.4 trillion in the first round of budget cuts, which affected some of its multiyear projects, including the Kerto dam in Aceh.

The ministry also maintained that the low budget disbursement did not translate to overall infrastructure development, with the physical realization of the budget hitting 44 percent as of Friday.

Infrastructure remains one of the main focuses of Jokowi’s administration, after he cut fuel subsidies to allocate more to productive spending such as infrastructure.

The Transportation Ministry also recorded spending of just 28 percent of its Rp 42.9 trillion budget by late July this year, lower than the 31.24 percent target.

The slow disbursement in infrastructure also featured in Bank Indonesia’s (BI) survey on construction business activity, where the net weighted balance (SBT), an indicator used to reflect business sentiment and direction, plunged to 0.2 percent in the second quarter from 0.37 percent in the same period last year and 0.59 percent in the first quarter this year.

The ministry has also tried to speed up spending this year, with early bidding for 5,344 projects worth Rp 42.74 trillion by the end of last year, of a total 10,752 packages.

The ministry signed contracts for 644 packages worth Rp 8.8 trillion in January this year, which is expected to jack up the disbursement to 6 percent from almost zero spending in January 2014. The disbursement is expected to be spread more evenly this year.

Commenting on the situation, infrastructure observer Wicaksono Adi said that the low disbursement would inevitably affect the country’s economy in the near future.

“But there should be an improvement, as the ministry will conduct an evaluation in response to the situation. They have time to catch up with the target,” he said.

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