Purbaya's Tale About Customs Officers Makes Prabowo Laugh, Read On!

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa has disclosed that he has reported the positive performance results of officers of the Directorate General of Customs and Excise (DJBC) to President Prabowo Subianto.

According to him, the performance of customs officers is now more clearly visible as the trajectory of customs and excise revenue collection has turned positive in April 2026, after three months of contraction compared with the same period last year.

Based on the data, total customs and excise revenue in April 2026 stood at Rp 100.6 trillion, up 0.6% from the realisation for the same period last year of Rp 67.9 trillion. In January the growth was minus 14%, February contracted 14.7%, and March was still down 12.6%.

“So it seems the Customs people have started to take their work seriously,” Purbaya said at the APBN Performance and Facts press conference, Tuesday, 19 May 2026.

Purbaya said that after receiving the report of improvements in the performance of customs staff, President Prabowo Subianto laughed. He emphasised that Prabowo considers the DJBC officers to be afraid to commit wrongdoing.

“According to the President, when I said, ‘Sir, it has improved,’ the President laughed, haha, they have started to be afraid now, yes I think so, Sir,” Purbaya said.

“But we don’t mind; what matters is the performance has improved,” he asserted.

Purbaya added that the improving performance of DJBC officers is also evident from the dramatic rise in the enforcement of illegal cigarettes and narcotics.

He noted that for illegal cigarettes, enforcement has reached 684 million sticks, up 125.8% compared with the same period last year. For narcotics, the number of enforcement actions reached 522, up 10.8% compared with the same period last year.

“So in the future, technology will be applied there, and I think it will be even better. If not, we will relocate them, or rehouse them,” he said.