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Budget constraints restrict Bekraf’s movement

Considered the future growth engine of the economy, the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) was forced to swallow a bitter pill after its budget was cut significantly

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Thu, July 13, 2017

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Budget constraints restrict Bekraf’s movement

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onsidered the future growth engine of the economy, the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) was forced to swallow a bitter pill after its budget was cut significantly.

Bekraf head Triawan Munaf said at a recent hearing with House of Representatives’ Commission X that the agency’s 2017 budget would be slashed to Rp 702.4 billion (US$52.54 million) from Rp 906.39 billion.

The cut is in line with Presidential Instruction No. 4/2017 on spending efficiency across ministries and agencies.

The 22.5 percent reduction will force the agency to revise the number of people it can educate, train and facilitate in the development of the country’s creative economy sector.

“With the budget revision, we will have to reduce the number of people who will receive education on the creative economy to 6,074 people from over 9,000,” Triawan told members of the commission, which oversees education, sports and history.

After the cut, Bekraf will only have Rp 544.38 billion for its creative economy development program and Rp 158.02 billion for the management support program.

The cut will also affect its target for capital access training for businesspeople in the creative economy sector as the agency will only be able to cater to 2,603 people, down from 3,510 people.

In infrastructure division, its target for education in the development of IT infrastructure has to be revised as well to 5,524 people from the previous target of 7,500 people.

Triawan argued that the budget slash would not effect Bekraf’s performance in boosting the creative economy as the cuts would not effect its priority programs.

The agency’s priorities lie in the film, application and music industries, with emphasis also given to other sectors including the craft, fashion and culinary industries.

Since taking office in October 2014, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has vowed to make the creative economy a new source of growth, slowly shifting Indonesia’s reliance on the commodity sector.

Jokowi has envisioned the birth of 1,000 “technopreneurs” in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, home to 250 million population across the sprawling archipelago.

Bekraf deputy head Ricky Joseph Pesik said that most of the agency’s spending is on goods expenditures directly related to the human resources program.

“It does not mean that it [the reduction] will decrease the multiplier effects created by our agency and we will not sacrifice our prime and priority sectors” he said.

The goods expenditure will stand at Rp 661 billion after the cut, down from the previous budget of Rp 865 billion.

Lawmakers, however, did not see eye to eye with Triawan as they believed the budget reduction would negatively influence Bekraf’s performance and its capacity to achieve its 2017 target.

My Esty Wijayati, an Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P) politician, said the agency had only reached 20 percent of its targets in the first half of the year.

Deliberations between the government and lawmakers on the revised 2017 budget are still ongoing and are expected to reach an agreement this month. (rdi)

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