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Apindo resists government-backed housing fund body
Lobby group Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) has voiced its opposition against the government’s plan to create a housing fund management body that will tackle fresh funds collected from workers
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obby group Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) has voiced its opposition against the government’s plan to create a housing fund management body that will tackle fresh funds collected from workers.
As mandated by the 2016 Public Housing Saving (Tapera) Law, the government will have to dissolve the existing Housing Savings Advisory Board for Civil Servants (Bapertarum-PNS) to form a Tapera management body (BP Tapera) by the end of March.
It will be tasked with administering housing funds gathered from civil servants as well as private sector workers.
“From the very beginning, Apindo has been consistent in its view that BP Tapera is unnecessary as the body has a similar purpose to the Workers Social Security Agency [BPJS Ketenagakerjaan],” Apindo chairman Hariyadi Sukamdani recently said.
The Tapera program is part of the government’s efforts to slash the housing backlog in the country, which currently stands at around 11.4 million houses.
Apart from this program, it also has the One Million Houses program, through which a million houses are set to be built each year until 2019 to address the backlog.
Public Works and Housing Minister Basuki Hadimoeljono said the state owned insurer PT Asabri would also be merged with BP Tapera. At present, the company provides insurance to military officers.
The government would soon issue a government regulation that will detail the scope of work of the new body, he added.
Under the proposed scheme, workers joining the Tapera program will pay a contribution equal to 3 percent of their monthly wages, of which 2.5 percent they will pay on their own, while the rest will be borne by their employers.
However, Hariyadi warned that if implemented, such a scheme would be strongly rejected by private workers.
“We are concerned that workers will react very strongly to the move as a 2.5 percent cut is quite huge,” he said.
Nevertheless, the public works and housing minister argued that the government’s short-term goal was to build BP Tapera’s credibility, particularly among civil servants.
“We will focus on building the credibility of BP Tapera first and then merging Asabri into it, before rolling out the program to private workers,” Basuki said, adding that the body would at first serve civil servants before making its way into facilitating private workers.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said there would be a transitional period in the asset transfers from Bapertarum to Tapera, the mechanism of which would be specified in a presidential decree to be issued soon.
The former is estimated to keep up to Rp 11 trillion (US$770 million) in assets.
“The presidental decree will regulate [the transition process]. Therefore, Bapertarum will be able to continue its function and obligation to the civil servants during the transition period,” Sri Mulyani said.
A public accountant had already finished its audit on Bapertarum’s assets and would deliver its report soon, she added.
The government has earmarked Rp 2.5 trillion to inject capital into Tapera as outlined in the 2018 state budget. However, Sri Mulyani underlined that the disbursement of the funds would depend on the formation of the body.
