45% of people in W. Java live below poverty line: Governor
45% of people in W. Java live below poverty line: Governor
Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung
West Java Governor R. Nuriana asked regents and mayors in the
province to wage war against endemic poverty, saying they should
create special programs for the empowerment of the poor.
"Based on a recent survey, 45 percent or 16 million of the
province's approximately 34 million population are living below
the poverty line due to the continued economic crisis. We must
have special programs to eliminate poverty," he said in a
gathering to break the fast with regents and mayors in Bogor over
the weekend.
Also attending the gathering were a number of legislators and
local officials.
Nuriana said the special programs should be incorporated into
the 2002 budgets of the province, regencies and municipalities.
"We must work hand in hand to wage war against poverty and we
should not be busy fighting for our own political interests," he
told the regents and mayors.
The governor also asked regents and mayors to manage well the
alms collected during the fasting month to be donated to the poor
to help enable them to celebrate the forthcoming Idul Fitri
holiday.
Nuriana's statement sparked stinging criticism from
legislators who said that the high poverty rate highlighted the
failure of the governor to eradicate poverty.
"This means the governor has failed to carry out the poverty
alleviation Dekabalarea program to improve the people's welfare.
It will be a strong point in evaluating the governor's
performance," said Yudi Widiana Adia, a legislator of the local
chapter of the National Mandate Party (PAN).
He called on law enforcers to retrieve all funds corrupted by
local officials to be used to empower the poor in the province.
"So far, the investigation into alleged corruption that
involves the governor and other officials has not shed any light
and has made us skeptical about his commitment to fighting
poverty," said the outspoken legislator.
Yudi said that so far, the governor had not accounted for the
distribution of an Rp 18 billion fund allocated to help small-
scale and middle-scale entrepreneurs in the province.
He said the governor should use the remaining Rp 210 billion
of the 2001 budget to be distributed to small- and middle-scale
companies to help eradicate poverty in the province.
"But, the distribution of the funds must be conducted
transparently and proportionally. Underdeveloped regencies such
as Kuningan and Tasikmalaya should gain more," he said.
Yudi pledged to give more attention to the issue of poverty in
deliberating the 2002 draft budget that was submitted to the
provincial legislative council recently.
Surwenda, chairman of the legislature's commission, said the
prevalent poverty was because the provincial government had given
little attention to the poor.
"This could be seen in leakages in the social safety net
program in the health and education field last year. A larger
part of the funds allocated for the program did not reach its
intended recipients," he said.
Rafani Akhyar, another member of the commission, said 30
percent of the province's 2002 budget should be used to combat
poverty in the province.