JAKARTA: The Indonesian government promises more pay bonuses for customs and excise officers in an effort to boost revenue collection, according to a statement by the Ministry of State Secretariat.
Under a new regulation that rolled into effect on Sept. 28, officers of the directorate general of customs and excise at the Finance Ministry will get a bonus of up to four times their monthly take-home salary in 2017 if they managed to exceed their annual target by at least 10 percent.
Customs officers have been enjoying higher salaries and bigger allowances since 2007 compared to their counterparts in other institutions as part of a government-mandated bureaucracy reform to improve the performance of customs officials, who used to be infamous for their corruption and inefficiency.
The officers got their first performance bonuses last year for exceeding their target in 2014. The office missed its 2015 target so some of the officers may go by with no bonuses this year, customs and excise office spokesman Deni Surjantoro said on Friday (07/10).
The prospect of getting the bonus salary next year looks bleak for the officers. The office has collected only Rp 66 trillion in excise fees or 45 percent of the Rp 148 trillion target in the 2016 revised state budget by Aug. 31, as weak global demand hampered the country’s exports and slowing investment limited its imports.
That is lower compared to the 54 percent realization by the end of August 2015 and 65 percent in the corresponding period a year earlier.The nationalist Danish People’s Party, on which Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s minority government relies to stay in power, won’t make any conditions that oil and gas assets need to stay under Danish control, Christensen said.
Energy Minister Lars Christian Lilleholt told Bloomberg that new operators would only need to meet certain financial and technical criteria to be approved. There are no limitations on offshore buyers, provided European Union sanctions against Russia aren’t breached, he said.
Dong Energy A/S, a state-controlled utility that went public in June, has tried and so far failed to sell its exploration and production unit as the company focuses on green energy. Meanwhile A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, Denmark’s biggest company, last month revealed a new strategy that entails divesting its E&P unit, which pioneered the country’s North Sea oil exploration. Bankers have advised Maersk and Dong to consider merging their two unwanted units.
“There are no easy answers” in deciding how to dispose of Dong’s oil and gas assets, Christensen said. “But what’s important for us as the owners, is that someone actually shows an interest in extracting our underground resources. If nobody cares, the assets are worthless, but if someone can make a business out of it , the assets become valuable.”
