Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia's Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman has promised to step down if he fails to eradicate the food import mafia at the ministry.
“The import mafia, insya Allah, if we find them, we will deal with them. If I can't resolve this, I will step down,” he said during a working meeting with Commission IV of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) here Tuesday.
He informed that he has dismissed at least four employees from the ministry, two of whom were directors since October 2023. He held the same ministerial post in the previous government led by Joko Widodo.
Sulaiman revealed that he dismissed three of his Echelon II and III subordinates after they were found to have received around Rp10 billion in project procurement fees from several companies.
He also removed one more Echelon II official, equivalent to a director, from the ministry after he was found to have received a project fee of Rp700 million.
The minister earlier said that these decisive actions were a follow-up to directives from President Prabowo Subianto, who conveyed three specific instructions to him: preventing criminal corruption, ensuring budget efficiency, and achieving food self-sufficiency within the next 3–4 years.
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During the working meeting with Commission IV, Amran also outlined several programs that his ministry is planning to roll out in 2025.
The ministry has been allocated a budget of Rp29.37 trillion for 2025, including an additional allocation of Rp21.47 trillion.
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Sulaiman said that Rp15 trillion from the budget will be allocated for the Quick Win programs of creating 150 thousand hectares of new rice fields, conducting agriculture intensification on 80 thousand hectares, and optimizing 350 thousand hectares of land.
Meanwhile, the ministry's non-quick win programs include increasing the production of food crops such as rice and corn, for which Rp4.33 trillion will be allocated, as well as increasing the production of beef/buffalo and milk, for which Rp2.14 trillion will be set aside from the budget.