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February 11, 2025 | 04:56 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The head of the Presidential Communication Office, Hasan Nasbi, denies that the budget of the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has been cut by 50 percent.
"It is not true that the BMKG budget has been reduced by 50 percent. Please check with BMKG for the latest data," Hasan Nasbi said in a written statement to journalists on Tuesday, February 11, 2025.
Hasan mentions four criteria unaffected by Prabowo’s administration budget cut: employees’ wages, employees’ priority basic services, public services, and social aid.
"As a public service, disaster mitigation is guaranteed optimal operation,” he said, adding that Prabowo’s directives on budget cuts only cover “the fats of our state budget, not the muscles.”
“The government’s capacity and capabilities will not be reduced,” he added.
Tempo has asked for clarification from the weather agency’s chief, Dwikorita Karnawati, but the efforts went unanswered. BMKG previously requested to be exempted from an Rp1.423 trillion budget cut, equal to 50.35 percent of its initial budget of Rp2.826 trillion.
BMKG stated that the budget cut—something the government attributes to efficiency reasons—will impact the agency’s main operational instruments and risk them becoming inoperable.
The head of the Legal, Public Relations, and Cooperation Bureau of BMKG, Muslihhuddin, said the budget cut could affect the maintenance on these instruments, which will drop as much as 71 percent. Subsequently, BMKG’s observation capacity for the weather, climate conditions, air quality, earthquakes, and tsunamis will be disrupted.
Muslihhuddin illustrated that most of the nearly 600 sensors responsible for monitoring earthquakes and tsunamis spread across Indonesia have exceeded their service life. Reduced maintenance capacity by 71 percent is feared to delay early warning for tsunamis from 3 minutes to over 5 minutes.
The range of dissemination of information related to earthquakes and tsunamis is also expected to drop by 70 percent due to the planned budget cut. Overall, Muslihhuddin told Antara, "The accuracy of weather, climate, earthquake, and tsunami information decreased from 90 percent to 60 percent."
Additionally, studies on the medium- and long-term climate and tectonic dynamics in Indonesia are difficult to carry out due to the budget cut. The modernization of BMKG's systems and operational equipment, including for air transportation safety, which requires 100 percent accuracy, is said to be unachievable. Ultimately, transportation safety across the country could be compromised.
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