TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Surfing the Internet for several days after the turn of the year, Tempo found no copy of the law governing the 2026 State Budget (APBN) on official government channels. It was not until Deputy Finance Minister Suahasil Nazara offered a hint. “It’s been uploaded. Please check,” he told Tempo on Wednesday afternoon, January 7, 2026.
Sure enough, Law No. 17/2025 on the 2026 State Budget suddenly appeared on the Legal Documentation and Information Network of the Ministry of State Secretariat. According to the website, the regulation had been promulgated on October 22, 2025. The House of Representatives (DPR) had passed the 2026 State Budget Bill into law at a plenary session on September 23, 2025.
Previously, Suahasil had hedged when asked about the whereabouts of the 2026 State Budget Law. He said the document would be included in the state gazette so the public could access it after promulgation. “As per the usual,” he said via WhatsApp on Wednesday morning, January 7. Yet several hours after that statement, the long-awaited document was still inaccessible to the public.
The delay in publishing the 2026 State Budget Law until the end of last year raised public questions. The regulation serves as the legal basis for the use of state funds in the following fiscal year. In practice over the past decade, State Budget laws approved by the House in late September were typically ratified and promulgated no later than October. “It should have been promulgated and published the following month,” said Roy Salam, Executive Director of Kanal Foundation, a think tank focused on governance, policy, and public transparency.
Read the Complete Story in Tempo English Magazine
