CSO coalition: Fire Indonesia health minister
A COALITION of civil society groups, academics and social organisations has started an online petition urging Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to fire Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto for his alleged incompetence in handling the worsening Covid-19 pandemic.
“We think that Terawan Agus Putranto has failed to carry out his duties in handling the pandemic as health minister,” the coalition wrote in a petition filed through change.org.
“Therefore, we demand that President Jokowi dismiss Terawan from his position as health minister and replace him with someone more competent.”
The petition was started on Wednesday by the National Network on Domestic Worker Advocacy (Jala PRT), the head of students’ executive board of Syari f Hidayatullah St at e Islamic University (UIN Jakarta) Sultan Rivandi, the head of the University of Indonesia’s Student Executive Body (BEM UI) Manik Marganamahendra, Irma Hidayana of LaporCovid19 (Report Covid-19) community and Supinah as a labour representative.
“From the beginning, the minister has taken the pandemic lightly. He has not been serious in handling [the pandemic]. He is also unable to overcome issues such as protecting health workers and containing the spread of Covid-19,” the petition said.
The World Health Organisation said as of Sunday, Indonesia ranks 23rd among the countries with the highest rate of Covid-19 infections, with 299,506 cases, only second to the Philippines in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia also has one of the highest death tolls in Asia, with more than 11,000 deaths.
In September, Amnesty International also listed Indonesia among the countries with the highest estimated numbers of health workers who have died from Covid-19.
Calls for Terawan’s removal have been made as early as
March when another civil society coalition consisting of human rights watchdogs KontraS and Amnesty International Indonesia, among other groups, said he had “an arrogant and antiscience attitude”.
The Indonesian president, however, has claimed that the country’s Covid-19 control efforts are going well, as the nation enters its eighth month of the outbreak and exceeds 300,000 cases.
“Let’s judge this based on facts and data, not based on estimates,” Jokowi said in a video posted on the Presidential Secretariat’s YouTube channel on Saturday night.
“I can say that Covid-19 handling in Indonesia is not that bad. It is quite good.”
He said the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases and deaths in Indonesia was significantly lower than that of other countries with large populations. The video displayed the case counts of countries such as the US, India and Brazil, which number in the millions.
He did not address the fact that Indonesia’s Covid-19 testing rate remains significantly lower than the rates of those countries. The nation has conducted 12,854 tests per one million people, compared to the US’ 333,407 tests per one million and India’s 57,096 tests per one million.
The government has been criticised for a lack of transparency regarding the Covid-19 death toll. Suspected virus deaths recorded at the provincial level reached 12,362 on Friday, surpassing the 11,151 total confirmed deaths reported by the Health Ministry on Sunday.