TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Speaking at the closing of the National Conference of Islamic Scholars and the Great Conference of Nahdlatul Ulama, President Prabowo Subianto claimed that the low salary of teachers and civil servants is due to state budget leakage. For years, he said, the nation's wealth flowed out of the country while the people reaped no benefit from it.
"I want to say this in this forum because I want my NU brothers and sisters as leaders, as ulama, as teachers, as the people's advisers, to understand why teachers' and civil servants' salaries are no good. It's because we don't have the money," Prabowo said in Bangkalan Regency, East Java Province, on Tuesday, adding that the state funds are "constantly taken away."
Prabowo explained that the matters of teacher and state apparatus' welfare are inseparable from the state's financial condition. The government, he said, calculated that around US$150 billion or Rp2,500 trillion in state funds leaked each year.
Therefore, Prabowo said he is striving to improve this situation by shutting down loopholes. Budget leakage is caused by a number of factors, he said, one of which is the loss posted by state-owned companies.
Calling these firms a financial burden, Prabowo said he had shut down around 240 companies in 20 months he has been in office. "I thought state-owned companies numbered at around 300; [but] when I became President, I only knew that the number was over a thousand," said Prabowo.
Prabowo aims to close around 700 to 800 state-owned enterprises that are running at a loss.
During this occasion, Prabowo also highlighted the practice of under-invoicing export values, which contributed to state losses.
"Business actors are lying. They say they sold 1,000 tons, but they report only 500 tons. What does it mean? It means the country is at a loss," Prabowo claimed, citing a US$908 billion loss over 34 years.
Read: Prabowo Blames Capital Outflows for Rupiah Weakness
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