Gita Wirjawan Resigns Leaving Many Homework
1 February 2014 18:14 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Gita Wirjawan has resigned from his position as the Minister of Trade. He made the decision, so he could concentrate more as a presidential candidate in the Democratic Party convention.
Although a number of parties appreciated his decision to avoid conflict of interests, he was actually viewed neglectful in carrying out his duties. "Indonesia's terrible trading performances for the past two years were caused by trade deficit," said Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) economist, Enny Sri Hartati, when contacted by Tempo, yesterday.
Furthermore, he has also left "homework", for instance, he has not shown concrete actions to prepare for this country to enter the free market in 2015, when in fact, in order to face the upcoming Asean Economic Community (MEA), the Trading Ministry should be the vanguard of Indonesian markets.
Moreover, she added, the trading system of main commodity imports was still in chaos. For the past couple of weeks, the government has been preoccupied by the public rice meeting at Induk Cipinang Market that was not conducted by state logistics firm Perum Bulog. "It is still hectic; Why did they not finalize who should be responsible first," she said.
AYU PRIMA SANDI
