TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Transportation Ministry is planning to raise safety budget by 25 percent next year as part of efforts to improve transportation safety rate.

"Next year we will raise it by 20-25 percent of the overall budget," Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan said here on Tuesday, September 15.

He said the safety budget will particularly be used to increase flight safety rate by improving navigation system, among others.

"The budget will mostly be used for air transportation to maintain the level of flight safety," he said.

The minister said he will continue to raise the safety budget although the Commission V of the House of Representatives (DPR) has threatened to not approve the budget hike due to low absorption of state budget fund at the Transportation Ministry.

"It doesn’t matter. Wed better struggle for it. If they do not approve it, we will work with the existing budget," he said.

By August 2015, the ministry’s spending only reached 18.6 percent or less than a half of the budget absorption target of 85 percent for all of this year, he said.

He noted that one of the factors causing the low budget absorption is the procurement of projects with e-catalog in which down payment is not required.

"I think all ministries have found it difficult to use their budget. The budget will mostly be absorbed in the second semester," he said.

Based on the revised 2015 state budget, the budget allocation for the ministry has been set at Rp65 trillion. The minister said contracts for the construction of 80 percent of projects financed with the 2015 state budget have been signed.

ANTARA