Capital Injection to Speed Up SOE Infrastructure Projects: Jokowi
6 November 2015 19:56 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta-President Joko Widodo claimed that the House of Representative had not rejected the State Capital Injection (PMN) proposed by the government. Jokowi added that the plan would be discussed in the next session.
“Who rejected the PMN? [The proposal] was postponed to be discussed later in the Revised State Budget (APBN-P),” Jokowi said after inspecting the Trans-Sumatra highway project in South Lampung on Friday, November 6.
According to Jokowi, the discussion about the PMN will be continued in January or February. Jokowi asserted that the government would allocate the PMN to accelerate infrastructure development in the country.
Jokowi added that the development would not be effective if the infrastructure budget was to be allocated to the Public Works Ministry.
“[The PMN] is to be allocated to state-owned companies to accelerate [the infrastructure development]. For example, with Rp 5 trillion (US$357.1 million), a state-owned company can deliver its job four to six times faster. The result would be different if the job was handled by the [Public Works] Ministry,” Jokowi explained.
Jokowi believes that the acceleration of infrastructure projects would be realized if state-owned companies took participation in handling the projects. Furthermore, Jokowi said that the allocation of the PMN to state-owned companies was aimed at preventing halted projects. Jokowi also asserted that halted projects should be injected with the PMN so that they could generate maximum benefits.
ANANDA TERESIA