President Jokowi: Regular Monitoring, Evaluation Needed During New Normal
Regular monitoring and evaluation should continue to be done during new normal, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has said.
According to him, the COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet and the situation is still as challenging as that in the previous months.
“The Government must still flatten the curve and avoid the second wave as much as possible,” President Jokowi said during an inspection to COVID-19 Post at Bhakti Praja Building in the Central Java provincial capital of Semarang, Tuesday (30/6).
The Head of State also pointed out that economic crisis continues post threats to the country as demand, supply and production have been disrupted during the pandemic, adding that Indonesia’s economy in the first quarter could still grow at 2.97 but may post a negative growth in the second quarter.
“This is what we have to carefully manage— health issue and economic issue. The Government should really manage the two aspects at the same time,” he said.
All countries worldwide, he added, are experiencing economic contraction and the world’s economy is expected to drop to minus 6 or even minus 7.6 this year.
With that being said, President Jokowi said he had ordered regional leaders to carefully regulate and manage between health and the economy.
“This is our responsibility, including governors, regents, mayors, personnel of the Indonesian National Defense Forces (TNI), personnel of the National Police as well as the COVID-19 Task Force,” the President underlined.
The President also called on related stakeholders to begin the new normal by following strict health protocols and also urged them to always consult experts and hear inputs from them using updated data prior to designing policies. (HIM/EN)
Translated by: Estu Widyamurti
Reviewed by: M. Ersan Pamungkas