Banyumas claims to have 144,000 poor families

Agus Maryono, The Jakarta Post, Purwokerto

Almost half of the 1.4 million residents of Banyumas regency, Central Java, live in poverty caused by the country's prolonged economic and political crises, according to the regency's Development Planning Board.

"The real number living in poverty in Banyumas is 604,000 people or 144,000 families," Budi Utami, head of the planning board, said.

The number of people living in poverty has increased sharply over the last three years, she added.

Utami said that there were 71,000 families living under poverty line in 1997. "This means that the figure has jumped drastically, more than 100 percent, from 71,000 families (in 1997) to 144,000 families (in 2001).

"We are very concerned about the situation. We wish politicians would be more aware of this and start to think about the people. Stop political foul play, which in the end disrupts people's lives," she said.

According to Utami, the regency has its own method of measuring poverty.

"A poor family's income is less than Rp 300,000 (US$30) per month, And they can only afford to educate their children as far as junior high school."

According to the regency standard, a poor family has no permanent house and the head of the family has no permanent job.

"They also cannot afford to go to the doctor whenever family members get sick," said Utami. "They only have staple food, with very inferior nutrition for their daily meals.

"We have many families that fall within that category," she said.

Meanwhile, the head of the economic office at the regency, Rofik Widadi, confirmed Utami's claims, saying that many people had lost their jobs. "Dismissals and layoffs have taken place almost everywhere.

"The number of poor people is increasing both in urban and rural areas. But most poor families live in the districts of Cilongok and Gumelar where the residents are farmers who have no land to cultivate. They just do agricultural-related business, like the palm sugar home industry, for other people," said Rofik.

The administration has tried to reduce poverty. "But all we have done seems to be fruitless as the price of staple food and basic needs have yet to stabilize due to the fluctuation of the rupiah against the U.S. dollar following all the political instability.

"Since the economic crisis hit the country three years ago, the (central) government introduced social safety net programs. The money the people collected from the programs were used entirely for their daily meals, instead of for producing something.

"The farmers' credit scheme (KUT), which involved billions of rupiah, also failed. The money the farmers borrowed from the village cooperative was used to buy food and basic needs. The scheme became stagnant long ago after many farmers could not repay the loans.

The latest efforts made by the government to help poor people was the cheap rice program. "A few months ago we spent more than Rp 1 billion to buy rice for some 50,000 families. The rice was sold to them for Rp 1,000 per kilogram, or Rp 500 lower than market price."