Jakarta – Member of Commission VII of the House of Representatives, Mulyanto, believes that the government’s plan to expand the scope of recipients of the electric motor vehicle subsidy programme is full of business interests. According to him, there are interests of certain business groups and unscrupulous government officials behind the issuance of this policy.
“The economic value of the subsidy for purchasing electric vehicles is very large. So any effort will be made so that this subsidy budget can flow into the pockets of these business groups,” Mulyanto said in his statement in early August.
Mulyanto questioned the government’s stance that seems to force the subsidy for the purchase of electric vehicles, especially with the low public response so that only 36 electric vehicles have been sold to date.
According to him, electric motorbikes and cars are tertiary needs, so their consumers are wealthy. “So it is not appropriate to subsidise (electric vehicles),” he added.
Mulyanto said that the limited state budget should be directed appropriately to those who are economically weak, namely groups that are marginalised by the development process. If subsidies are given for commodities, they should be directed at subsidising public goods such as public transport, whether electric buses or electric trains.
He suggested that the government review the programme instead of expanding the scope and loosening the subsidy requirements. Currently, the incentives are only given to MSME players, but of the target of 200,000 electric motorbike units prepared, only one per cent has been realised.
The plan is to extend the subsidisation of electric motorbikes to the general public. The government plans to regulate that each identity card (KTP) can be used for one motorbike purchase. (Hartatik)
