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.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsPrabowo threatens to ‘freeze’ Customs as smuggling cases mount
Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa pointed to several urgent problems requiring immediate action, including the smuggling of illegal goods and widespread under-invoicing in both imports and exports.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
A sleeve patch featuring the logo of the Finance Ministry's customs and excise directorate general is seen in this stock photo taken on March 13, 2023. (Shutterstock/Wulandari Wulandari)
F
inance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa revealed that President Prabowo Subianto has threatened to “freeze” the Customs and Excise Directorate General due to rising cases of illegal goods smuggling and under-invoicing.
“I have asked for one year. Do not disturb the agency. Let me, give me time to fix Customs, because this threat is serious,” Purbaya said on Thursday after a hearing at the House of Representatives.
According to the minister, President Prabowo is prepared to return Indonesia’s customs inspection function to the Swiss-based Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), as was the case during the New Order era, if performance or public trust of current customs authorities fails to improve.
“If we fail to fix the institution, then 16,000 Customs employees could be sent home,” he added.
Purbaya pointed to several urgent problems requiring immediate action, including the smuggling of illegal goods and widespread under-invoicing in both imports and exports.
“There is under-invoicing in exports, and illegal goods are entering the country unnoticed. People are saying all sorts of things about Customs,” he said at the Presidential Palace complex on the same day.
An investigation, he continued, indicated that some of the discrepancies occurred in Indonesia-China trade flows.
