Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
Main Expert Staff of the Presidential Staff Office Ali Mochtar Ngabalin questioned the criticism from aviation observer Alvin Lie and other parties regarding the painting of the presidential plane which cost Rp 2 billion.
Ngabalin feels there is no problem because it does not interfere with the Covid-19 handling budget. According to him, Rp2 billion is used for paint and aircraft maintenance every 7 years.
“If you want to see the maintenance costs, paint, then a 7-year inspection is carried out, Rp1 billion-Rp2 billion for the presidential plane, where is the problem?” said Ngabalin in the CNN Indonesia Newsroom program, Tuesday (4/8).
He emphasized that the painting of the presidential plane was not taken from the Covid-19 handling budget. According to him, the Ministry of State Secretariat has allocated hundreds of billions of rupiah for handling Covid-19.
“I want Rp. 1 billion, Rp. 2 billion, for the maintenance of the president’s VVIP flight, there is no problem, it does not interfere with the covid budget because the budget refocusing has been done 2-3 times,” said Ngabalin.
The Golkar Party politician admitted that he was confused about the painting of the presidential plane, which was questioned by a number of parties. He emphasized that there was no political intention from President Joko Widodo in painting the presidential plane.
“No one has a patent on color. Does blue belong to this party, that party? Green belongs to this party? Why is the color of the president’s plane brought up to politics?” he said.
Previously, the painting of the Indonesian Presidential Aircraft-1 or BBJ-2 aircraft was in the public spotlight. Aviation observer Alvin Lie started a conversation on social media by uploading a photo of the red-and-white presidential plane.
Alvin said that painting planes usually costs up to Rp. 2 billion. He called the budget a spree at a time when Indonesia was in crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
After Alvin’s tweet went viral, a number of elite Democrats also commented. The chairman of the Democratic Party’s Election Winning Body, Andi Arief, questioned the plane’s color change.
“Now the presidential plane is red. I don’t know what that means, it could be the color of the flag or the corona. It used to be blue,” Andi tweeted via Twitter account @Andiarief_, Tuesday (3/8).
(dhf / bmw)
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