State draft budget

State draft budget

It is disappointing to know how the state draft budget for
1998/1999 has been prepared. I am not an economist, but to my
mind, there are many items that are either too optimistic or too
unrealistic. The matter became clearer to me after reading an
article in The Jakarta Post of Jan. 8, 1998. The answers from
economist Sri Mulyani Indrawati are straight forward and no
nonsense that people can understand easily.

No wonder that the IMF is also disappointed with the state
draft budget since it does not meet the target set by the IMF
under the bailout deal. A question flashes in my mind "What could
be the reason for the government to prepare such an unrealistic
draft budget?" How can we achieve a four percent growth in this
economic turmoil -- the rupiah fell to its record low of Rp
11,000 per U.S. dollar, the number of the unemployed keeps
increasing, revenue from income tax and VAT is questionable, many
medium and small-scale enterprises may go bankrupt etc. Then I
suppose the 1998/1999 draft budget has been politically
motivated.

H.W. PIENANDORO

Bogor, West Java