Jakarta – Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the crisis period due to the COVID-19 pandemic was the right time to carry out various reforms by utilizing technology.
This was conveyed by Sri Mulyani in a webinar held by the World Bank on Indonesia’s experience in dealing with the crisis and improvements made after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“All of this can be done because current technology plays an important role in people’s lives,” she said in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Sri Mulyani said that technology could save a portion of the economy by converting it from an offline system to an online business or ecommerce-based system so that it could potentially contribute tax revenue.
Not only that, she said that technology can also be used to update data that supports priority sectors such as health, social protection, and the real sector, and MSMEs.
She gave an example, technology in taxation data can increase tax compliance by the ease of submitting SPT online and the speed and accuracy of the tax return process.
Then, technology can help reduce COVID-19 pandemic victims through ventilators for curatives, vaccines for prevention, and online doctor applications.
Furthermore, technology plays a role in helping the implementation of education which is hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic so that learning becomes safer from home with ICT.
“Right now I can transfer money directly to school or health center. They can use the budget through the application. There will be a report directly to the Minister. This alleviates the workload because the President wants everything to be efficient and no longer bureaucratic,” she said.
Moreover, Sri Mulyani said that technology could be used to reach people in remote areas throughout Indonesia so that development could be more inclusive.
She said that the Ministry of Finance had formed a task force to carry out technological transformation so that they could interact and collaborate online.
“Now we will make the work from home procedure permanent. We are also formulating flexible working space procedures too,” she said. (Ant)
English by Tokoh.ID System
