President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said the change in the price of pertalite fuel oil (BBM) will be carefully decided so as not to reduce people’s purchasing power and hurt the country’s economic growth. August 23 After attending an event at the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) in Jakarta’s Taman Mini Indonesia Indah on Tuesday, President Jokowi said the price change program for Pertalite has affected many people’s lives and will continue to do so.
“This concerns the lives of many people, so everything must be decided carefully, the impact is calculated lest the impact will reduce people’s purchasing power, reduce household consumption,” Jokowi said.
He said the government would also mitigate the impact of changes in Pertalite prices on the national inflation rate and economic growth. Indonesia recorded an annual inflation rate of 4.94% (YoY) in July 2022, based on data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS). This is her highest since October 2015, but in the second quarter of 2022, Indonesia’s economic growth showed a positive trend. register. 5.44% (YoY).
The Head of State has confirmed that he has ordered his staff to carefully and accurately calculate the planned price changes for Partalite before making any decisions. “I told everything to count correctly before it was decided,” he said.
Meanwhile, Said Iqbal said Labor Party has decided to reject the plan to change oil prices, gas, and other energy for several reasons the hike of Pertalite’s price from Rp 7.650 to Rp 10.000,- per liter will make the inflation rate gets 6,5%, and these facts can decrease lower class society purchase power, and especially for labor factory which since 3 years their salary did not change and oil price hike can make their purchase power go down 30% and overall the impact of oil price hike makes purchase power will down to 50%.
“Second, labor salary does not change as omnibus law results can create work termination because the factory owner will calculate oil price hikes. Third, there is not apple to apple if the government is comparing the plan of change oil price with other countries oil prices without the government does not reminder income per capita or public income, because oil prices in Malaysia, Singapore and the United States have supported with their high public income. Fourth, if the government has planned to implement renewable energy, it is not clear because many of state companies such as electricity state company still using oil, coal etc and they are not ready to use renewable energy,” said Said Iqbal as Labor Party President while he further explained fifth reason is premium’s oil has gone in Indonesia’s market, it makes approximately 80% public who are using Pertalite oil for public transportation because of that Labor Party will ask government does not change oil prices before we are ready using renewable energy.
