Indonesia's Fiscal Budget

Article as reported in What's New Jakarta:

Where to spend the money?: We are all painfully aware of the urgent need to spend money to improve the roads, mitigate flooding, ensure clean water and sewerage access for all, upgrade the airports and port etc etc the list goes on. “Yes but this all costs money and where will that come from?” you might ask. Well in fact we could start with the governments own overflowing coffers. As of early this week, the government had only disbursed Rp 556.28 trillion ($61.75 billion) being only 56% of the years budget. The Ministry of Works, which is responsible for roads, bridges and ports, has only spent less than 50% of its Rp 37 trillion budget. There needs to be some very serious questions asked as to why this money has not been spent, considering that everywhere you look there is a desperate need for it be spent!

Commentary:  Assuming these figures are based on a calender year basis; e.g.  Jan 1st - Dec 31st, and not on a fiscal year basis; e.g. July 1st - June 30th -- then this means that 91% of the fiscal budget year has already gone by and only 56% of the year's budget has been spent; with less than 50% of the Public Works budget being allocated or utilized.  Why has this money not been spent you ask?  Because the difference has been "earmarked" for the politicians' own pockets.