(Bloomberg) -- Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto ordered his ministers to move fast and cut unnecessary costs amid concerns that the much bigger cabinet he’s established could bloat the budget and worsen red tape.
“I want efficiency,” Prabowo said at his first plenary cabinet meeting on Wednesday, telling his ministers to review their budgets allocations. “Activities that are too ceremonial, too many set-ups, too many foreign trips, conferences, gatherings - please reduce them.”
The recently-inaugurated leader acknowledged that his cabinet was “quite large” — comprised of 48 ministries, up from his predecessor’s 34 — but said it shouldn’t be a problem as long as it worked efficiently. Its size was also appropriate for the scale of Indonesia, which has the world’s fourth largest population, he said.
The fatter cabinet will allow focus on more strategic areas, especially around infrastructure, poverty alleviation and food self-sufficiency, Prabowo said. He pledged to cut down on red tape and bottlenecks, which investors had worried would worsen as a result of Indonesia’s bigger bureaucracy.
This includes swift action on rolling out his campaign pledge of providing free school meals nationwide. The program, which is slated to begin in January and cost 71 trillion rupiah ($4.5 billion) next year, will be a massive undertaking. At its full scale, it would require some 30,000 kitchens to serve 83 million people, at a price tag of almost $30 billion.
“We must move quickly” as the nutritious meals is a strategic program for the country, Prabowo said. “I am not saying it can be done in one week, two weeks, or three months. We will achieve the targets we set. I’m confident. I’m putting my leadership on the line.”
Downstreaming will also be a priority as the president asked his cabinet to draw up a list of more commodities that could be processed onshore and exported as higher-value products. Meanwhile, law enforcement was told to focus on serious threats such as online gambling, drugs and corruption.
A former general, Prabowo told his ministers that any disobedience or under-performance would not be tolerated.
“Those who do not obey and do not work hard, remove them immediately. Tell them to stay at home, instead of making it difficult for us,” he said, continuing the same strongman rhetoric he used in his inaugural speech as president on Sunday.
--With assistance from Norman Harsono.
(Updates with more comments from speech)
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