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Rp 770,000 for a chicken? House demands explanation from Agriculture Ministry
House of Representatives Commission IV, which oversees agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food production, has demanded an explanation from the Agriculture Ministry over its high budget allocation for chicken procurement.
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House of Representatives Commission IV, which oversees agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food production, has demanded an explanation from the Agriculture Ministry over its high budget allocation for chicken procurement. (JP/Ganug Nugroho Adi)
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ouse of Representatives Commission IV, which oversees agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food production, has demanded an explanation from the Agriculture Ministry over its high budget allocation for chicken procurement this year.
Commission IV chairman Sudin, a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the commission would hold a follow-up meeting with the Agriculture Ministry on Monday to discuss the matter.
“[We will hold the meeting] so that this issue can be clarified,” he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
During Tuesday’s work meeting between the commission and Agriculture Ministry officials, Sudin questioned the ministry’s local poultry development program budget, which allocates Rp 26.98 billion (US$1.83 million) to procure 35,000 chickens.
He said that allocation put the price of one chicken at around Rp770,000. “Is the budget for one chicken that big?” Sudin said.
He said the allocation violated the implementation checklist for the ministry’s 2020 budget, which allocated Rp 551.4 billion to procure around 8.8 million chickens, which put the price at Rp62,000 a chicken.
Sudin also questioned other procurement allocations for the program, such as the Rp 5.03 billion budget to procure 550 pigs, which puts the price of one pig at around Rp 9 million. He urged the ministry to reassess the budget allocation and present the correct data, a demand accepted by the ministry’s animal husbandry director general, I Ketut Diarmita.
On Saturday, however, Ketut clarified that the Rp 26.2 billion budget also included Rp 3.69 billion for chicken production grants from the technical implementation unit in 2020 and Rp 20.98 billion for completing the remaining work contracts of its 2019 work program in Gorontalo and Southeast Sulawesi, making the chicken budget at Rp 2.02 billion.
“The price is not Rp 26.96 billion divided by 35,000 chickens or Rp 770,000 per chicken, but the budget actually consists of several other components of activities included in the budgeting,” Ketut said in a written statement.
Additionally, the chicken procurement budget would also include other poultry farm supplies, such as chicken food, medicine, cage repairment cost aid and operational funds.
Ketut added that the high pig procurement budget was due to the higher cost of distributing the pig farm aid in the Papua region. The ministry estimated that the aid distribution in Papua would cost Rp 13.1 million compared to Rp 4.3 million in other regions, namely West Kalimantan and North Sulawesi.
