Heaptalk, Jakarta — The East Kutai Regency Government has responded to President Prabowo Subianto’s instruction on budget efficiency by issuing several measures for spending cuts in managing the 2025 budget.
“Through East Kutai Regent’s Instruction No. B-100.3.4.2/04/HUKUM, all regional apparatuses are directed to implement spending efficiency. This step follows up on Presidential Instruction No. 1 of 2025 on budget savings in implementing the State Budget and Regional Budget,” the East Kutai Regency Government stated in a written release on Tuesday (02/11).
In the instruction issued on February 10, 2025, in Sangatta, East Kutai Regent Ardiansyah Sulaiman emphasized that each regional apparatus must cut several non-priority expenditure items. The focus on efficiency includes reducing budgets for ceremonial activities, official travel, team honorariums, and infrastructure projects that can still be postponed.
Regional apparatuses must prepare plans for spending cuts immediately and report them to the Regency Secretary. This report must also be copied to the Head of the Regional Financial and Asset Management Agency (BPKAD), the Head of the Regional Development Planning Agency (Bappeda), and the Head of the Procurement of Goods and Services Division. The deadline for submission is February 20, 2025.
There are seven main points in the spending efficiency instructed by the East Kutai Regent:
- Efficiency in spending on ceremonial activities, studies, comparative studies, printing, publications, and seminars/focus group discussions (FGD);
- Efficiency in official travel expenses by 50%;
- Efficiency in honorarium expenses by limiting the number of team members and the amount of honorariums following the Presidential Regulation on Regional Unit Price Standards;
- Efficiency in spending unrelated to the alignment of performance indicators and achievement of performance targets;
- Efficiency in infrastructure spending for projects whose construction can still be postponed;
- Budget for grants in the form of money, goods, or services for the 2025 Fiscal Year;
- Efficiency in spending, excluding Employee Expenditures, Social Assistance Expenditures, Office Operational Expenditures, and Regional Public Service Agency (BLUD) Expenditures.
Ardiansyah also instructed regional apparatuses to control expenditures in the categories mentioned above in advance until a final decision was made regarding the determined efficiency values.
