$320m raised for poverty alleviation
JAKARTA (JP): A poverty alleviation foundation, chaired by President Soeharto, has collected more than Rp 768.6 billion (US$320.25 million), including Rp 622 billion in taxpayers' donations, in its first year of operation.
An auditor's report released yesterday says that by March 31 the Yayasan Dana Sejahtera Mandiri foundation had collected Rp 572.7 billion in donations from 7,151 companies and Rp 49.4 billion from 6,642 individual donors.
The state secretariat has provided an interest free Rp 100 billion loan to the foundation.
"The foundation has lent more than Rp 119 billion to six million families who each received Rp 20,000," State Minister of Population Haryono Suyono said yesterday after the foundation's first annual meeting at Soeharto's residence on Jalan Cendana.
He said the foundation had also lent Rp 120 billion to three million families which received Rp 40,000 each.
President Soeharto set up the foundation in a private capacity in January 1996 to help 22 million people living below the poverty line. Tycoon Soedono Salim (Liem Sioe Liong) and businessmen Sudwikatmono and Haryono helped set up the foundation, on which they serve as Soeharto's deputies.
Minister of Cooperatives Subijakto Tjakrawerdaya and Soeharto's son Bambang Trihatmodjo are secretary and treasurer of the foundation, which gets its funding from donations based on Presidential Decree No. 90/1995.
The decree urges individuals and companies with after-tax incomes or profits of more than Rp 100 billion a year to donate up to 2 percent of their income to the program.
In this year's first cabinet meeting on poverty alleviation in April, Soeharto said the government's integrated poverty programs had reduced the number of people living below poverty line from 25.9 million in 1995 to 22.5 million in 1996.
President Soeharto expressed his gratitude to taxpayers, and promised to personally write a letter of appreciation to every taxpayer who had donated more than Rp 1 billion.
"With these funds, we are optimistic that we can eradicate poverty before the end of the Seventh Five-Year Development Program in 2004," Subijakto quoted Soeharto as saying.
Soeharto also assured donors that their donations were being used responsibly to improve people's welfare. The auditor's report will be published soon in local newspapers so that donors can find out how their money was managed.
"They can check it directly with the treasurer (Bambang) if they still don't believe the report," Subiakto quoted Soeharto as saying.
Yesterday's meeting was attended by three of the foundation's board members and 12 executives including Soedono Salim and his son Anthony Salim, Soeharto's son Bambang Trihatmodjo, tycoons Prayogo Pangestu and Muhammad (Bob) Hasan, banker Usman Admadjaja, Sudwikatmono, and five cabinet ministers. (06)