TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The government is allocating Rp5 trillion for natural disaster relief funds in the 2020 State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN). The funds will be distributed to the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), the Technology Assessment and Application Agency (BPPT), as well as the Geospatial Information Agency (BIG).

The Finance Ministry's director-general of budget, Askolani, said that the allocation of funds for disaster management is carried out by the government every year.

"During the mitigation, most of the work is carried out by BPPT and BIG, while the executor can assist the regional government in overcoming the disaster problem," he said on Thursday, September 26.

Askolani said that although the funds were included in the 2020 APBN, they would still be used for the recovery of natural disasters that had occurred in the previous year, such as in Palu and West Nusa Tenggara.

"This was done in 2019 as well," he said.

He said that the funds are not only used to procure prevention tools, also to finance various dissemination and education programs on disaster response. This is aimed at raising public awareness so they would know what to do when disasters strike.

"The public needs to be educated so they can prepare [for disasters], because Indonesia is indeed vulnerable," he said.

Askolani is optimistic that the 2019 disaster relief fund will be available until the end of the year, although there are currently many forest fires such as in Kalimantan and Sumatra.

"[The handling of] forest fires is also supported by the 2019 disaster budget," he said.

ANTARA