By Stefanno Sulaiman and Gayatri Suroyo
JAKARTA, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s president sacked his finance minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa on Monday and replaced him with his deputy Suahasil Nazara, as he battles to win back investor confidence amid long-festering concerns about policymaking and fiscal profligacy.
Suahasil, a former academic and a deputy finance minister since 2019, is the third person to take the role under President Prabowo Subianto.
He was among a number of senior officials who arrived at the state palace for a swearing-in ceremony, while Purbaya was earlier seen leaving in the middle of a parliamentary hearing.
“The priority is to run a credible state budget,” Suahasil said after his inauguration, adding he would commit to keeping the fiscal deficit below the legislated limit of 3% of GDP.
“I will continue to run a trustworthy state budget, ensure trustworthy public communication, and also ensure that what the state budget does supports the government’s priority programmes.”
POLICIES UNDER INTENSE SCRUTINY
Prabowo’s sacking of Purbaya came just days after the former economist marked one year as finance minister, with Southeast Asia’s largest economy suffering a crisis of confidence among investors and analysts.
Prabowo’s fiscal policies have been under scrutiny since he came to power in October 2024, especially after his government increased the fuel subsidy budget following a spike in global crude prices, raising further questions about how his costly flagship programmes – including a troubled free school meals scheme – could be funded.
The straight-talking Purbaya was the second finance minister to be axed. He was brought in to replace the widely respected Sri Mulyani Indrawati in September last year, as Prabowo sought aggressive pro-growth policies over fiscal prudence.
Purbaya did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Purbaya’s time in office was marked by economic shocks, including a plummeting rupiah currency and a ballooning fiscal deficit. His policy of injecting quick liquidity into banks to spur growth also created friction with the central bank.
Fitch and Moody’s both downgraded Indonesia’s credit rating outlook from stable to negative this year, citing policy uncertainty and fiscal spending plans, battering sentiment on the $1.4 trillion G20 economy.
SIX-MONTH TIMELINE
Purbaya in an exclusive interview with Reuters six months ago – his first with foreign media – admitted that his unconventional policies, which have broken from the country’s fiscally conservative approach, were at the centre of growing concerns about how the economy is being run.
He expressed confidence that the concerns would not linger and said during the interview that he had given himself a tight timeline of six months, saying that if the economy was not moving in the right direction by then “you can lambast me as much as you like”.
The latest controversy surrounding Purbaya was his sudden announcement that sovereign wealth fund Danantara Indonesia would transfer 120 trillion rupiah ($6.8 billion) of its profits to the government to help meet this year’s fiscal deficit target. The head of Danantara later said no such plan was discussed.
While Indonesia’s growth figures did rise under Purbaya, a number of questions were also raised about the reliability of economic data, especially growth figures.
Before joining the government, Suahasil was an academic and researcher. He holds a doctoral degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Angus Mackintosh, ASEAN specialist at Aletheia Capital, said Suahasil could bring more stable and predictable policymaking.
“This looks like another move toward fostering greater stability given that Nazara served under Sri Mulyani and has more of a technocratic background,” he said.
(Reporting by Gayatri Suroyo, Stefanno Sulaiman, Ananda Teresia and Gibran Peshimam; Additional reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Singapore; Editing by Martin Petty and John Mair)
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