Jakarta – During his decade of rule, President Jokowi succeeded in laying a new foundation for the Indonesian nation, with Indonesia-centric development. Jokowi has succeeded in building 366 thousand km of village roads, 1.9 million meters of village bridges, 2,700 km of new toll roads and 6,000 km of national roads.
Development in the era of President Jokowi has streamlined connectivity, basic services, food distribution, and provided a multiplier effect for the national economy and Indonesian society which reaches all corners of the country to the Disadvantaged, Frontier and Outermost regions (3T).
This achievement should be appreciated, because the infrastructure development during President Jokowi’s administration had a significant effect on the economy and succeeded in realizing a centric Indonesia. It is not an exaggeration if the President can become the father of Indonesian Infrastructure because he has succeeded in connecting a number of regions in Indonesia.
In relation to this, one of the private TV stations held a discussion with the theme “1 Decade of Jokowi, Infrastructure Development Makes Indonesia Centric”. The dialogue event presented FEB UI Professor, Prof. Dr. Telisa Aulia Falianty, S.E., M.E. and Secretary of the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, Susiwijono Moegiarso as resource persons.
Telisa Aulia Falianty said that infrastructure has quite a large multiplier effect, the characteristic of infrastructure in Indonesia is that it is labor intensive, because many National Strategic Projects (PSN) absorb employment opportunities. The community really feels the infrastructure development.
“That certainly has a big impact. “As a community, we feel the efficiency of our activities with the infrastructure development,” he said on the Sapa Indonesia Malam program, on Kompas TV, Jakarta, Friday (04/10) evening.
According to him, people think that infrastructure is physical, even though it is also related to technology. In the era of President Jokowi, our internet speed has accelerated, from 4G to 5G. So it becomes easier for us to communicate and be productive. President Jokowi is very worthy of being called the Father of Indonesian Infrastructure.
“The economy is also using digital a lot, so this is all very helpful for the national economy. “We appreciate Pak Jokowi that he is the father of Indonesian infrastructure because he left an extraordinary legacy,” he said.
Telisa added that the education and health sectors are very important, because these two sectors are very important for building a country that we want to aspire to, namely an Advanced Indonesia, or a Golden Indonesia.
“With good infrastructure capital, we can build better education and health, because with a healthier and more educated society, we can grow again,” added Telisa.
In the same place, Susiwijono Moegiarso said that this massive infrastructure development had a big impact on economic growth over the past decade. If you look at the PSN, this was changed by the Presidential Decree or Coordinating Ministerial Decree, with the PSN list always increasing
“These are all multi-year projects, so in terms of numbers, relatively all of them have been completed and some are still in progress. “From the latest records, there are 233 projects, some of which have been completed by the end of this year, some after 2024,” he said.
Susiwijono also revealed that of the 22 SEZs in operation, 15 are outside Java, as are several 3T areas. The government continues to encourage the development of new economic resources in border areas.
“Our various infrastructure projects, both PSN and economic development areas, especially KEK or regions, will indeed level all sources of economic growth, especially outside Java,” he said.
Meanwhile, for future sustainability, we want to push back some of the infrastructure that we have built in the past 10 years, what will happen next? For example, out of 61 dams, 53 have been implemented, and the next step is to improve the irrigation network, optimizing the use of the dam itself.
“Actually, this is already in planning, hopefully this infrastructure will really become a mainstay to encourage our economic growth.” he concluded. [*]