MOUNTAINOUS PAPUA – Governor of Papua Mountains Velix Vernando Wanggai has prepared a budget in 2024 to design and manage the latest National policy for contextual Papua Mountains which will begin soon, and in accordance with the policy direction of President of the Republic of Indonesia Joko Widodo, there must be a new spirit, paradigm, way of working in managing development in the Land of Papua for a leap forward in development, especially in Papua Mountains.
From the meeting with the President Joko Widodo, Velix hopes that each Regional Head throughout the Land of Papua will ensure the alignment of the Regional Government work plan with the objectives of the Government Work Plan or RKP in 2024, namely:
- Management of transfer funds to regions or TKD and APBD 2024 to improve public services, improve regional development performance, especially in the fields of education, health, and public works.
- Improving regional tax administration policies while maintaining an investment climate for ease of doing business and creating employment opportunities.
- Strengthening the synergy and harmonization of APBD policies with APBN fiscal policies with the central government, so that Indonesia’s development can move in harmony. Fourth, encourage creative financing as an alternative to accelerate infrastructure development in the
Regarding the implementation of monitoring and encouraging synergy in the implementation of Village Funds in the context of achieving National Priorities to eliminate extreme poverty, reduce stunting, and control inflation, Velix Wanggai continues to invite all Regional Heads in 8 districts in Papua Mountains as well as Ministries or Institutions and other agencies to jointly build a ‘new honai’ called Papua Mountains to be felt by the wider community.
Velix gave a special example of the current revenue of the Papua Mountains region from Rp 2.47 trillion in revenue and during the coordination meeting of the Regional Head with the Minister of Home Affairs in Sorong it was conveyed that the Papua Mountains PAD was only Rp 7 billion in revenue from the fiscal posture structure, this is a challenge for all stakeholders to how to design the next 20 years so that sources of PAD both productive economic sectors can be encouraged, in order to boost regional income so that there is a design in terms of increasing the budget which was previously two percent of the amount of the National DAU, to 2.25 percent.
Especially for logistics services in the Papua Mountains in the future, there needs to be a discussion with all existing districts and also Ministries and Institutions, as referred to as golden logistics so as to boost revenue in 2024, “for this reason, it must be strengthened and improved, we have a chain of logistics systems both by air, land, and river, we must jointly arrange new things for all the people of Papua Mountains, and as well as the potential of existing Natural Resources so that the Government must be present as a market or market or bridge to market agricultural products from upstream to downstream,” said Velix.
Yahukimo Regent, Didimus Yahuli, admitted that what had been conceptualized by the Pj Governor of Papua Mountains was very extraordinary, just juxtaposed with the Regency and realized in the APBD, “I am proud of the Governor because the concepts are extraordinary. Moreover, he is from Bappenas, so it is very good, especially for the people’s economy and in favor of indigenous Papuans,” said Didimus Yahuli.