TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Slow health spending raises 2021 budget concerns
Change Size
T
he government is under pressure to relieve a budget bottleneck that has limited the distribution of health funds and to ensure a more prompt disbursement of next year’s health budget as observers express concern about continued delays.
Center of Reform on Economics (CORE) director Mohammad Faisal called on the state to speed up health spending under the national economic recovery (PEN) program, as he said ensuring public health was essential for a quick economic recovery.
“We haven’t completed our biggest task yet,” he told The Jakarta Post recently.
As of Sept. 28, the government had spent only about a quarter of its PEN health budget, said Budi Gunadi Sadikin, head of the economic recovery task force, on Sept. 30.
The figure was much lower than that of social aid spending, which saw nearly three quarters of its budget realized by the same time.
Health spending in September was the lowest of any PEN spending category, task force data shows.
“We will continue to ensure that the allocated budget will be absorbed and that the budget will be available to procure vaccines [...] if they become available this year,” Budi said.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati acknowledged in July that administrative issues had hampered the state’s efforts to disburse COVID-19 funds swiftly. These issues included problems with the verification of hospitals, of medical practitioners and of their areas of expertise.
By June, the Health Ministry had disbursed nearly half of its Rp 79.3 trillion budget, according to the ministry’s reports. But after obtaining a reallocated budget of Rp 104.8 trillion, the ministry managed to disburse only 56.79 percent by the third quarter of 2020.
The ministry has three months left to spend the rest of its 2020 budget.
The sluggish health spending has raised questions about the government’s ability to disburse the 2021 state budget, especially since it is expected to continue wrestling with the COVID-19 pandemic through next year.
The government and the House of Representatives passed the 2021 state budget last month, which included Rp 169.71 trillion for health expenditure – about 6 percent of the total state budget for the year.
Rp 84.2 trillion of the health budget has been allocated to the Health Ministry, according to House meeting notes obtained by the Post.
A Finance Ministry budget planning report published in August indicated that part of the Health Ministry’s budget would be used to speed up COVID-19 recovery and expand the list of recipients of contribution assistance (PBI) for the National Health Insurance (JKN) program to 96.8 million – a number the government had aimed to reach by the end of 2019.
The Health Ministry did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo criticized Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto in June for low realized spending in the health sector. The minister responded by attributing it to what he claimed was the low number of patients. Meanwhile, medical workers were warning of overcapacity in hospitals.
Lawmakers from House Commission IX overseeing health care have defended Terawan.
Commission chair Felly Estelita Runtuwene said in June that the ministry was responsible for only about Rp 25 trillion of the Rp 87.55 trillion PEN health budget. The rest was managed by the Finance Ministry and the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).
Some Rp 25.73 trillion of the PEN health budget had been allocated for the procurement of COVID-19 test kits, laboratory services and other purposes. A portion of the budget was also being reviewed by the Finance Minister and, therefore, could not be spent immediately, she added.
Saleh Daulay of the National Mandate Party (PAN) told the Post recently that the minister needed time to spend the Rp 25 trillion, adding that Terawan was optimistic about spending the budget optimally this year.
"He once explained that he had allocated about Rp 21 trillion for COVID-19 medical treatment and that the rest was for medical worker incentives and medical equipment purchases," he said.
