Indonesian Ministers deny plan to pay civil servant salaries via cooperatives

Indonesian government ministers have clarified that there are currently no plans to shift the salary payment scheme for Civil Servants (ASN) to the Merah Putih Village/Sub-district Cooperative (Kopdes Merah Putih).

Minister of State Apparatus Utilization and Bureaucratic Reform Rini Widyantini emphasized that the priority is ensuring salary services remain comfortable, transparent, and easy for employees. Similarly, Minister of Finance Suahasil Nazara confirmed that salaries will continue to be transferred directly from the state treasury to individual bank accounts, maintaining the existing mechanism.

The discussion follows a proposal from the Ministry of Cooperatives, where Minister Ferry Juliantono suggested that Kopdes Merah Putih could serve as an instrument for paying salaries and pensions. However, officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of PANRB noted that such a shift must be carefully studied to avoid complicating the process for civil servants or destabilizing regional development banks (BPD) that currently manage these funds.