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.