Cookie-counting Indrawati aims to fix Indonesian budget woes

Jakarta

WITHIN the austere confines of Indonesia's Finance Ministry, even the cookies are under review as budget strains threaten to undermine President Joko Widodo's ambitious infrastructure plans for South-east Asia's largest economy.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati urged spending restraint in a recent speech to officials as she grapples with a fiscal shortfall and widening budget deficit. When a couple of dozen biscuits at a morning meeting weren't eaten and thrown out, she told her charges to tackle waste of any kind.

"Because the meeting was at eight in the morning, no one touched those cookies. Twenty four snacks for one meeting. Imagine in a day how many meetings we can have,"…