Luhut Confident Digitalisation of Public Services Could Save State Up to Rp 2,000 Trillion

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Chairman of the National Economic Council (DEN) and Chairman of the Committee for the Acceleration of Government Digital Transformation (KPTDP), Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, has stated that building a digital infrastructure system for public services could save state expenditure by up to Rp 2,000 trillion.

The savings arise because the digitalisation of public services, ranging from social assistance (bansos) to export-import trade data reporting systems, can prevent corruption, underinvoicing, and mistargeted distribution of social aid programmes, including the Free Nutritious Meal programme (MBG).

“So I think it could save thousands of trillions, perhaps Rp 1,500 trillion, maybe Rp 2,000 trillion, the figure is large, the data is there, I don’t remember all of it. Because leakages and also, as the President mentioned earlier, critical minerals, are very controlled,” Luhut said after chairing a Coordination Meeting on the Piloting of Social Assistance Digitalisation in 42 regencies or cities at the DEN Office, Jakarta, Wednesday (17/6/2026).

Specifically for the social assistance digitalisation programme, Luhut said it would create state spending efficiencies of hundreds of trillions of rupiah. In the long term, improving the targeting accuracy of social assistance distribution through this AI-based digital system will unlock potential spending efficiencies of around Rp 170 trillion to Rp 260 trillion, equivalent to US$10 billion to US$15 billion.

“That will create efficiency and we are essentially building an ecosystem where people cannot commit corruption, or it is very difficult to do so,” Luhut said.

Nevertheless, he stressed that these figures are strategic estimates, not yet realised savings, and depend heavily on data quality and the success of the system’s expansion. Every data change must have a clear audit trail.