Residents Reluctant to Join Economic Census, Central Java BPS Chief Blames Content Creators

The head of the Central Java Provincial Statistics Indonesia (BPS), Ali Said, has acknowledged receiving reports of residents refusing to participate or provide information for the 2026 Economic Census. He stated that one of the contributing factors is social media content that incorrectly links the census to taxation issues. Ali argued that certain content creators have spread false narratives about the Economic Census, specifically connecting it to tax collection, which he stressed is inaccurate. “Once again, I must emphasise that content creators should understand that the data we collect will not be handed over to the tax office or any other agency,” Ali said in an interview on Sunday (5/7/2026). He added that regulations from the Ministry of Finance already address this matter. “In the Ministry of Finance regulation itself, it is stated that even though there is a clause requiring all government agencies to provide information to the Ministry of Finance, there is an exception that BPS is not obligated to do so,” he said. Ali further guaranteed that data collected from the Economic Census would not be submitted to the Ministry of Finance. “We can guarantee that the security and confidentiality of information provided by individual respondents will be maintained,” he stated. He described the Economic Census as a major undertaking, making related content easily detectable by social media algorithms. “This influences the public. Meanwhile, our society is not yet able to carefully filter whether this information is true or false. They simply accept the influence,” Ali said. To counter the false narratives circulating on social media, Ali revealed that BPS is conducting direct outreach to the community by collaborating with neighbourhood and village officials. They are also mapping areas where residents are still refusing to be recorded or to provide information during the census. “I think when we go into the field, the actual refusal is only from a handful of people. So it is not massive,” Ali said. He noted that as of 30 June 2026, the number of respondents in Central Java who had been recorded by census officers reached 22.92 percent, or more than 4 million people. “Because this is still a long process, until 31 August 2026, the target is of course 100 percent. So we can record all of the 16 million entities covered by the 2026 Economic Census in Central Java,” he said. Separately, the Head of BPS for Semarang City, Rudi Cahyono, revealed that the implementation of the 2026 Economic Census in his area still faces several obstacles. One of them is that quite a number of residents are reluctant to provide information about their income due to concerns that it will lead to an increase in tax levies.