Not a true cooperative

Résumé détaillé

The Red and White Cooperatives program is becoming increasingly all-encompassing, yet it remains anything but a genuine cooperative.

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The Red and White Cooperatives program is becoming increasingly all-encompassing, yet it remains anything but a genuine cooperative.

hen the government mandated the nationwide establishment of rural cooperatives in July 2025, the stated objective appeared clear: stimulate local economies and empower grassroots communities by securing access to basic goods, agricultural inputs, and microcredit. Today, however, the initiative is undergoing an aggressive, top-down expansion that distorts its foundational mandate and raises serious questions about civil governance and fiscal discipline.

The most recent policy detour permits cooperative-run clinics and pharmacies to provide primary healthcare covered by the National Health Insurance (JKN). While thousands of cooperatives have launched across Indonesia, their medical facilities remain sparse. By comparison, roughly 10,000 community health centers (Puskesmas), alongside accredited private clinics, already serve as the primary care backbone for JKN policyholders.

Duplicating these services risks undermining established providers. Why divert state resources into unproven parallel facilities rather than shore up the financially strained national insurer and rehabilitate existing public health infrastructure?

This healthcare venture is symptomatic of a broader institutional drift. In October, Cooperatives Minister Ferry Juliantono proposed routing civil service salaries and pensions through the cooperatives, an idea swiftly rejected by Finance Minister Suahasil Nazara, who reaffirmed that direct bank deposits remain the standard for 6.7 million state workers to prevent administrative bottlenecks and extra fees.

Meanwhile, authorities continue pushing cooperatives into mineral mining, crude palm oil, and heavy logistics, attempting to scale them into…

Début de l'article, extrait de The Jakarta Post. Pour lire la suite, ouvrez l'article chez le média.