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'Ample room' in COVID-19 budget, say officials, despite low spending and record cases
As calls for the government to speed up spending on its coronavirus response continue amid the expected post-holiday surge in new cases, the COVID-19 task force has said it has ample spending room.
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A health worker takes a nasopharyngeal swab on Nov. 2, 2020 at the Genomik Solidaritas Indonesia (GSI) Laboratory in Cilandak, South Jakarta. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
O
fficials have made assurances that the government's health budget is sufficient to fund the national COVID-19 response, even as cases soar to record highs and patients start filling up hospital beds two weeks after the long holiday weekend at the end of October.
National COVID-19 task force spokesman Wiku Adisasmito said on Tuesday that the government still had plenty of spending room in its healthcare budget.
“We could still optimize the budget disbursement” to fight the coronavirus, Wiku told The Jakarta Post by text message. He added that the disbursement considered “many aspects and with great care” to ensure accountability and effectiveness.
The government has allocated to health care just Rp 97.26 trillion (US$6.9 billion) of its Rp 695.2 trillion budget for the Coronavirus Handling and National Economic Recovery (PC-PEN) program. Of this total allocation, it has spent just Rp 34.2 trillion, or 35 percent, as of Nov. 11 according to Finance Ministry data, amid the post-holiday surge in new cases.
Indonesia recorded its highest single-day figure of 5,444 new cases on Nov. 13, two weeks after thousands of people traveled across the country over the long weekend to mark the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.
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Official data shows that the daily tally has hovered around 3,000 to 4,000 new cases since then to reach at least 478,700 cumulative cases on Wednesday, with a COVID-19 death toll of 15,503.
