TNI says budget cut has no impact on military exercise

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A 15-percent cut in the state budget allocation for the Defense Ministry would have no impact on this year`s Joint Military Exercise (Latgab 2008).

"It has no impact whatsoever on the 2008 Joint Military Exercise," chief of the National Defense Forces (TNI) Information Center Rear Marshal Sagom Tamboen said here on Thursday.

Sagom said TNI this year needed around Rp50 billion to conduct a joint military exercise as part of its responsibility to the people of Indonesia.

Therefore, he added that the TNI continued making preparations for the military training and it was not affected by the budget cut.

Through the Finance Ministry, the government recently issued a decree asking all government institutions to cut back on their state budget-financed expenditures by 15 percent as part of a government retrenchment drive.

In this year`s budget, the government allocated Rp36.39 trillion which would be barely enough to support 36 percent of TNI and the Defense Ministry`s minimum need of around Rp 100.53 trillion.(*) END

• Rights team finds systematic pattern in Alastlogo incident
  
• Indonesian air force to conduct patrol exercise in Riau Island
  
• RI navy to get used tanks from S. Korea