Jakarta. Indonesian civil servants, policemen, and soldiers will soon receive bonuses equivalent to their one-month salary plus some benefits before the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati announced on Saturday.
Another annual bonus known as “the 13th salary” will be disbursed in July, she said.
“This year’s bonus will be bigger because we add 50 percent of performance allowance to it,” Sri Mulyani said in a virtual conference in Jakarta.
All retired servants, policemen, and soldiers are also entitled to double bonuses although without some benefits.
Employers in the formal sector are obliged to provide religious holiday allowance for their workers. Since the vast majority of the population are Muslims, most Indonesian permanent workers receive their allowance just before the end of Ramadan, which falls on May 3 this year.
There are currently 1.8 million civil servants at the central government level and 3.7 million others at the regional level, in addition to 3.3 million retired civil servants. The country also has around 400,000 active military members and 470,000 active policemen.
The central government has allocated Rp 33.3 trillion for the religious holiday bonus, whose amount could vary because regional governments may increase the figures depending on the provincial and district budgets.
The annual bonus is typically paid in July when the new academic year begins to help state employees cope with the extra spending on child education.
Earlier on Friday, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said he had signed a decree on the double bonuses “in appreciation to the dedication by central and regional government officials in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic”.
He also said the bonuses are meant to boost people’s purchase of power and speed up the national economic recovery.
