"This morning, I arrived at Radin Inten II [airport] for a working visit in Lampung, together with the Public Works and Housing Minister, State-owned Enterprises Minister and the Trade Minister," he posted on his Twitter account @jokowi.

The President said that he specifically planned to visit South Lampung regency, where local residents said they had suffered the most from worsening road conditions.

Soon after arriving in Lampung, he visited one of Lampung’s traditional markets, the Natar Market in the South Lampung regency on the outskirts of Bandar Lampung, where he made the point that the poor quality of the roads could induce inflation by way of increased logistics costs.

Jokowi said that the price of staple foods such as eggs, chili peppers, garlic and shallots were still affordable at the market as supply was still abundant, however, this was dependent on the logistics costs needed to bring the goods from farm to market.

"The cost of logistics depends on the good or bad quality of our infrastructure," Jokowi told reporters at the market.

He said that damaged roads must soon be repaired and if regional administrations could not do so, the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry would step in, especially for heavily damaged roads.

Photo handouts on the Cabinet Secretariat Twitter account showed the presidential car and entourage passing along Jl. Terusan Ryacudu in South Lampung, one of the damaged sections of the road in Lampung province, at 10.30 a.m. on Friday.

The poor roads in the province became a nationwide topic following a viral TikTok video created by Sydney-based Lampung student Bima Yudho Saputro, who later said that he received intimidation following his criticism.

In a YouTube video on April 14, Bima said that his parents at home had been threatened by local authorities and the police. Many linked the alleged intimidation to Lampung Governor Arinal Djunaidi , but Arinal denied having intimidated Bima’s parents.

Bima was also reported to the provincial police by a lawyer for inciting hatred and violating the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law. However, the case was dropped by the police who concluded that there was no indication of hate speech in Bima’s TikTok post.

A number of senior officials, including Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud M.D., also come to Bima's defense, saying he had a right to criticize the local administration.

NasDem Party lawmaker Taufik Basari also said that the ITE Law could not be used to silence criticism, while Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto said that intimidation should not be the answer to criticism.

Spectre of inflation

Amid the war in Ukraine, Jokowi raised the alarm last year in March that as global commodity prices increased, Indonesia would also have to face the challenge of domestic inflation.

Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced on Tuesday that headline inflation dropped to 4.33 percent in April.

The below 5 percent inflation for the second month in a row suggested that government efforts to boost food supplies and distribution had helped contain consumer prices that typically spike ahead of the Idul Fitri holiday.

Last week, Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said as La Nina weather phenomenon would give way to El Nino bringing higher temperatures and drier weather this year, the government was preparing steps to mitigate the impact of El Nino on inflation, especially with regard to foodstuffs.

Infrastructure has been one of the focuses of Jokowi’s administration since his first term in 2014-2019, pledging to focus on "inter-connectivity" for his second term.

 “We will accelerate [development] and connect the infrastructure projects, such as toll roads, railways, seaports and airports,” Jokowi said during one of his campaign rallies in July 2019.

Jokowi promised that infrastructure projects would open up marketing and distribution access to small and medium enterprises, plantations and fisheries, which would then boost regional economies.