The House of Representatives passed the controversial public housing savings (Tapera) bill into a law on Tuesday despite opposition from employers.The new law will become the legal basis for the establishment of a housing savings program for workers called Tapera. The housing savings program is a way for the government to help low-income people attain proper housing, Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono said in his speech after the bill’s approval. He said that the new program would help tackle the country’s current housing backlog, which stood at 13.5 million homes in 2014.
Following the approval of the bill, the government will establish a Tapera committee in three months and a body to manage the fund in six months.
Under the Tapera program, formal workers and independent workers with a salary above the minimum wage are obliged to join the program, while independent workers with a salary below minimum wage and foreign workers working in the country for more than six months can voluntarily join.
The mandatory savings amount has not been decided in the new law, but it will be about 2.5 percent of a worker’s salary. Two percent will be paid from the workers’ wages, while the other will be contributed by the employers.
The Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) strongly opposed the program as it deemed that the contributions for the savings program would place a burden on finances. The association said the program also overlapped with another government housing program covered in the Workers Social Security Agency (BPJS Ketenagakerjaan), which also provides its members with down payment assistance for home purchases.
Employers are currently required to pay at least 19 percent of workers’ wages for workers’ compensation, such as for old-age benefits, life insurance, workplace incident insurance, pensions, medical insurance, in addition to annual wage increases, which reach 14 percent a year.
Basuki added that the ministry would also merge its housing loan liquidity facility (FLPP), which has total funds of Rp 33.3 trillion (US$2.4 billion), with the Tapera savings program, to aid financing for low-income people’s housing.
The government will also source funds amounting to Rp. 10 trillion for the Tapera management body from the existing Housing Savings Advisory Board for Civil Workers (Bapertarum-PNS).
Basuki said that the technical details, including the percentage of the contribution for the savings program, will be stipulated in seven government regulations to be issued within two years, as well as one presidential regulation, one presidential decree and a regulation on the Tapera fund management body.
“When we draft the government regulation, we will involve businesspeople, and we will also adjust the percentage to their financial capability and economic conditions,” said Tapera special committee head Yoseph Umar Hadi.
He said that the timing would be used by the government to consolidate the current employment burden bore by businesspeople, including the old age benefit (JHT) fund and pension fund.
The ministry’s director general for housing finance, Maurin Sitorus, said that the program might take full effect in 2018, providing time for businesspeople to join the program. - See more at: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/02/24/bill-tapera-savings-program-passed-law.html#sthash.YifHiYfK.dpuf
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