Bogor Regional Council Requests Social Assistance Not Solely Dependent on National Socio-Economic Data
The Bogor City Regional Council (DPRD) Commission IV has requested that the distribution of social assistance funded by the Regional Budget (APBD) should not rely entirely on the National Socio-Economic Single Data (DTSEN) while the data refinement process is ongoing.
Fajar Muhamad Nur, Chairman of Commission IV of the Bogor City DPRD, stated in Bogor on Friday that this recommendation was made during a working meeting with the Bogor City Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), the Social Affairs Office, the Education Office, the People’s Welfare Division, and the Health Office.
“We requested clarification from BPS regarding variables and decile groupings. Our recommendation is to re-evaluate assistance programmes funded by the APBD so they do not rely solely on national census data parameters, ensuring that the rights of the community are not lost,” he said.
According to Fajar, the refinement of the DTSEN is expected to take approximately three to six months. Consequently, the local government needs to maintain discretionary space so that eligible citizens can continue to receive assistance during the data update process. He added that the Bogor City Government has allocated a budget for field verification through the Social Affairs Office to improve the accuracy of recipient data.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of Commission IV, Subhan, noted a discrepancy of approximately 20,000 residents between Bogor City’s local data and national data, suggesting that the use of local data should be optimised for aid distribution.
Responding to this, Ferry Maurist, a Junior Expert Statistician from BPS Bogor City, explained that changes in the deciles of aid recipients are dynamic, as they are influenced by the socio-economic conditions of the community and a hierarchical ranking process from national, provincial, to local levels. Ferry added that the public can utilise the ‘Usul Sanggah’ (Propose/Rebut) feature in the Cek Bansos application to request updates or lodge objections if there are discrepancies in socio-economic data.