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‘Hands-on’ Prabowo seen to seek close control of budget
Instead of being placed under the command of the coordinating economic minister, the finance minister now reports directly to the President, which indicates a more hands-on approach by Prabowo Subianto to budget management.
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Wearing a white shirt, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati waits for her car at the House of Representatives complex in Jakarta on July 8, 2024. (TJP/Deni Ghifari)
A shortened chain of command in the cabinet is seen to indicate a more hands-on approach to budget management by the new President.
Instead of being placed under the command of the coordinating economic minister, the finance minister now reports directly to the head of state.
President Prabowo Subianto inked two presidential regulations on Monday that serve as the legal foundation for his cabinet. Unlike the usual arrangement, however, the list of institutions overseen by the Office of Coordinating Economic Minister does not include the Finance Ministry.
Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto told reporters on Tuesday that the Finance Ministry was now “directly” under the President, but he refused to elaborate why such an arrangement was put in place.
Finance Ministry spokesman Deni Surjantoro confirmed the structural change on Tuesday.
In the cabinet’s maiden plenary meeting on Wednesday, Prabowo said Indonesian bureaucracy was “notoriously complicated [and] very notoriously slow”, and he repeatedly emphasized the importance of “efficiency” in his speech.
“It’s not that I want to meddle with the work of the ministries; no, I want to help. Where there’s a bottleneck, where there’s hardship, we deal with it immediately,” said Prabowo, a former general who until Sunday served as the defense minister.
