By: Adriansyah *)
Jakarta, CIDISS – Indonesia’s infrastructure development is facing many problems. Infrastructure is a critical component in improving the citizen’s economy and welfare . Problems encountered in the form of non-conformity with the financial planning needs of implementation, the difficulty of land acquisition process and the political problems that impede the development of the infrastructure itself. One of the current government plan is the construction of the Trans Sumatra toll. The development is hampered because the budget allocation is still stuck in the House of Representatives (DPR). Public officials decided to withhold the allocation of state budget capital participation (PMN) to 25 State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in the budget 2016. Allocation PMN returned to each Commission to be discussed again in the Revised State Budget (APBN-P) 2016.
This problem will hamper the development of infrastructure that is still inferior to other countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and China. Availability of infrastructure can be seen from the availability of the motorway. The toll road has an important role in facilitating the distribution of the economy. The length of toll roads in Indonesia is only about 774 km which is almost entirely in Java. While Malaysia has 3,000 km of highways and China has 60,000 km of highways. Therefore, the construction of roads, especially the toll are essential to boost the region’s economy accelerated to evenly.
The main problem of funding infrastructure development in Indonesia is inadequate or that the state budget has not come down to the state company. If funds were available, it is not a difficult thing to do groundbreaking infrastructure development. In fulfilling these funds, the government was forced to seek debt abroad. Bank Indonesia (BI) noted, the amount of foreign debt in the private and public withdrawn in July 2015 amounted to US $ 303.7 billion or Rp 4376.3 trillion (count rate: Rp 14 410 / USD). However, the funding generated a lot of resistance from some quarters. Debt is considered only to be a negative impact for Indonesia. Though the debt is intended to meet the infrastructure needs of Indonesia for long term use. [AH]
*) Economy Observer