VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

After the provision Village Fund and Sub-district Fund, the government plans to allocate the District Fund. The discourse on the district fund allocation came up at a national coordinating meeting of the heads of district, Ciputra Hotel in Jakarta on Wednesday (03/20/2019). Minister of Home Affairs, Tjahjo Kumolo explained that his side is currently processing the proposed district fund budget. He views that this budget is different from Village Fund and Sub-district Fund which are budgeted from the State Revenue. The district fund will be budgeted from the regional state revenue of each region.

On the same occasion, Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati gave a positive signal to the proposal of the Minister of Home Affairs. Minister Sri said that she would review the funding allocation for the district. Therefore, she would discuss the matter with the Ministry of Home Affairs to choose the most effective instrument to be used as the district budget.

If so, the District Fund will be disbursed to create a balance of development. It is known that the village and sub-district have received funding allocations from the State Budget.

At the end of last year, the government policy related to the sub-district funds became polemic. Even though the district fund policy is good, this is a polemic because the fund will be issued ahead of the presidential election. Thus, before the election, there is an assumption that this policy benefits the incumbent in the 2019 presidential election.

Although it is a mere discourse, this has the potential to cause polemic because it is highlighted prior to the April 2019 General Election. To dismiss this allegation, Minister Tjahjo said that he had lobbied the district fund to Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani for the past two years. Based on Minister Tjahjo's statement, it seems that this discourse does not appear suddenly in the context of elections. The critical question is that how useful this district fund is if it is realized.

Based on the Government Regulation No.19/2008 concerning districts, in addition to carrying out their role as fostering agents and supervisors of village governance, the district government also carries out various matters of population administration and licensing, as well as basic sector services, such as order and security affairs, education, health, poverty alleviation, community empowerment and concrete efforts to prosper the regional community.Viewing the major roles delegated to the district government, of course the district needs sufficient financial support. So far, the district government has received funding from the regional budget. Isn’t the fund enough so that there is a discourse about the provision of the district fund? What is the function of the district budget?

To answer the question, the government must conduct in-depth study. The effectiveness of the fund also needs to be studied in depth even though the proposal of the district fund is aimed at accelerating the development and public services at the lower levels.