Author: Ahmad Harris *
Ahead of the 2019 presidential and vice presidential debate, the Prabowo and Jokowi camps are awaiting preparation of materials and references that will be used to attract the hearts of the Indonesian people. For the Jokowi camp, the moment of a debate may be used to convey the program, vision and mission, and the progress that Jokowi has successfully carried out. On the other hand, Prabowo will certainly use the moment to criticize President Jokowi as an incumbent. Apparently, Prabowo’s party did realize that the vision and mission it was carried did not have enough influence on the community, so the only way to gain popularity was to bring down its political opponents.
One of the mandatory issues that Prabowo will definitely bring is debt. Prabowo and Sandi tend to be intense to herd the country’s debt while campaigning. Prabowo even said that every baby born in Indonesia has a debt burden of Rp. 9 million. Meanwhile, Sandiaga Uno stated that the debt borne by each child reached Rp. 13 million. Though state debt has never been principled like that. Of course, state debt will be paid by the state, not every newborn child. The analogy is, if we borrow money at the Bank, the Bank never asks about the number of children owned but the amount of income earned. Nufransa Wira, Head of the Ministry of Finance’s Communication and Information Services Bureau, said there was no relationship between debt per capita and debt per community in Indonesia.
Although it has been clarified repeatedly by the government, Prabowo and Sandi remain reluctant to get out of their thinking about the country’s debt. Both of them continue to campaign that Jokowi is the root of the problem of all state debt. In fact, Indonesia’s sovereign debt has been quite large since SBY’s time. During the previous administration, SBY used debt for electricity subsidies, fuel subsidies and BLT subsidies. Indeed, the program was very popular in the community, but slowly the program actually undermined Indonesia with outstanding debts. It can be said, SBY’s goal of using debt is only to create policies that are favored by the public without thinking about the long-term impact on the country’s economy.
Unlike SBY, Jokowi actually uses debt to improve the country’s economy. The allocation of state debt in Jokowi’s period is used for the construction of oil blocks, infrastructure, dams, irrigation and other facilities that can support the welfare of the community. Even though the public cannot feel the debt benefits like SBY’s fuel subsidies, slowly the debt allocation will later improve the living standards of the Indonesian people. Of course, we don’t want to choose to have fun at the beginning and have trouble at the end, right?
However, that’s how politics is, even though Jokowi has taken the right steps, the opposition continues to try to sue and change the facts so as if state debt is very dangerous for the country. No other, the aim is only to drop the electability of President Jokowi so that people switch to supporting Prabowo’s side. Nufransa Wira said the threat of debt to the state must be seen based on the standard of a non-political economy to avoid bias. According to him, Indonesia is still in a safe condition and will not be extinct with the current debt. Indonesia’s per capita debt ratio in 2018 was recorded at the US $ 1,147 with a debt ratio per GDP of 30%. This figure is still far below 60% as stipulated in Law Number 17 of 2003.
As a developing country, Indonesian people do not need to be anti-state debt because every country needs it. However, what needs to be seen is the productivity of the use of debt in reducing social inequality and improving people’s welfare. Like Proverbs, assembling upstream swimming later, having pain before having fun then, that’s how Jokowi uses state debt so that in the future there will be a better economy.
*) FISIP students at the Dharma Agung University
