jpnn.com, JAKARTA - The government will soon disburse a budget to PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) to assist in the completion of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail project (KCJB).
According to Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, the amount to be injected is Rp 4.3 trillion.
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The budget injection is referred to as the base equity.
"This project was originally a business-to-business (B2B) project and should have been fulfilled by SOEs," she said.
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"However, because the KAI has been affected by Covid-19 and has experienced a decline in the number of passengers, the SOEs are not able to provide the base equity."
She stated this in a joint working meeting of the Ministry of Finance with Commission XI of the House of Representatives (DPR) in Jakarta, Monday (8/11).
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The budget to be disbursed comes from the 2021 excess budget balance (SAL) worth Rp 20.1 trillion.
However, the State Treasurer emphasized that the funds had not been injected into PT KAI, considering that the Ministry of SOEs was still negotiating with the KCJB consortium regarding the completion of the project.
During the negotiations, several things that are proposed by the Ministry of Finance are being discussed.
Among them are KCJB's initial capital deposit by the consortium and the possibility of dilution of the government's 60 percent stake in the project.
"If the government's ownership is diluted, we don't need to issue such a large State Capital Participation (PMN)," said Sri.
She also explained that the initial capital for the KCJB project should have been deposited at US$920 million on a B2B basis by four SOEs, namely PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN), Waskita, PT Jasa Marga, and PT KAI at the start of the project, which was around 2015.
However, when the project started running, the four state-owned companies that were members of a consortium could not deposit the initial capital.
Therefore, the KCJB project was carried our through a loan from the China Development Bank (CDB).
"However, this loan was disbursed and until a certain point the equity ran out," she said.
Sri hoped that the Ministry of SOEs and the consortium could find the middle point of the problem, considering that the KCJB project has been included in the National Strategic Project (PSN) through Presidential Regulation (Perpres) Number 109/2020. (antara/mcr20/jpnn)
This news has been broadcast on JPNN.com with the title: Besar Juga ya Anggaran Bakal Digelontorkan Pemerintah untuk Kereta Cepat, Sebegini