Jakarta. President Prabowo Subianto insisted Monday that Indonesia had enough money for the post-flood recovery in Sumatra, thereby keeping his no-foreign-aid stance unchanged.

The cyclone-induced floods and landslides hitting Sumatra in late November have claimed at least 1,030 lives and damaged 186,488 homes. The disaster mainly affected three provinces on the island: Aceh, West Sumatra, and North Sumatra. 

Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Prabowo insisted that Indonesia could afford the recovery unaided — thanks to the massive budget cuts early in his term. Shortly after assuming power, Prabowo had ordered his government to slash non-essential expenses such as business trips and ceremonial events, allowing Jakarta to redirect parts of the saved money to the Sumatra flood recovery. The cuts also prevented any budget leaks or corruption, Prabowo claimed.

“We have set aside the state budget for the [post-disaster recovery] because the money is there. At the beginning of my presidency, we managed to save hundreds of trillions of rupiahs. I remember getting mocked because people thought that I shouldn’t do the austerity measures,” Prabowo told his ministers at the State Palace.

According to Prabowo’s estimates, the provincial governments in the disaster-struck areas have received Rp 20 billion (nearly $1.2 million) worth of tactical budgets, which the country had reserved for emergencies. Indonesia has rolled out approximately Rp 4 billion for each of the 52 city/regency-level governments in the affected regions. 

“I have received calls from many foreign leaders who had offered to lend a hand. I told them ‘Thank you for the concern, but we, Indonesia, can take care of this,” Prabowo said.

Indonesia has yet to declare the Sumatra floods a national disaster emergency. This has prevented the entry of foreign aid. The Aceh government, however, recently penned letters to UN bodies, namely the development agency UNDP and its children-focused counterpart UNICEF, requesting help. Both agencies confirmed Monday that they had received the letters.

“We are currently reviewing the requested areas of support in coordination with key authorities, to identify priority needs where UNICEF can contribute to the government-led response efforts,” UNICEF Indonesia said.

UNDP Indonesia made a similar-sounding statement, saying that assessments are underway to identify how it can “best support the national responders and affected communities” in Aceh.

Data compiled by the national disaster authorities put Aceh as the worst-hit province out of the three, as its death toll totaled 431. As many as 139,341 houses suffered severe damage, on top of the 1,100 destroyed public facilities.

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