VP wants RI to stop begging for foreign aid

VP wants RI to stop begging for foreign aid

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

Vice President Hamzah Haz said on Saturday Indonesia should not
become a "beggar nation" that relies on foreign assistance to
care for its people.

"We are not a people who like to beg for mercy from foreign
people," he was quoted by Antara as speaking at an alumni
gathering of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) in the
West Java capital of Bandung.

"Indonesia should be able to emerge as a self-sufficient
country, one which can even extend loans to other countries," he
added.

Hamzah said Indonesia, home to 210 million people making it
the world's fourth largest country, should benefit from its huge
population and wealth of natural resources.

"The country's abundant natural wealth and great number of
people should actually be enough to cater for the people's
needs," he said.

The Vice President blamed past governments for mismanagement
and poor development policies, which he said had caused a deep
gap between the rich and the poor and triggered social unrest
across the country.

This plunged Indonesia into a multidimensional crisis, he
said, adding that the condition was deteriorating amid the lack
of social solidarity, especially on the part of big businessmen.

Apart from that, Hamzah said rampant practices of corruption,
collusion and nepotism had further worsened the nation's
hardship.

The government's foreign debt amounted to a total of US$74
billion due now.

Hamzah said Indonesia's interest payments on debt amounted to
some US$9.7 billion per year. "Had this country been a company,
we would have been declared bankrupt," he added.