BPS Jakarta admits mistake in registrating the poor

BPS Jakarta admits mistake in registrating the poor

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Jakarta branch of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS Jakarta)
said on Thursday it had removed the names of 3,539 families from
its list of families entitled to receive direct cash assistance
from the government to help offset the impact of higher fuel
prices.

BPS Jakarta head Sunari Sarwono said at City Hall his office
would collect the fuel compensation cards from the families as
soon as possible, adding that the cards would be destroyed to
prevent them from being misused.

"There were some mistakes during the registration process that
we uncovered during the verification," Sunari said.

Sunari said at least 3,263 families that registered for the
cash assistance program did not meet the criteria, while 276
other families could either not be located or had moved.

"We have to drop their names from the list of recipients even
if they consider themselves to be poor. They failed to meet the
14 criteria for those residents entitled to receive cash
payments," he said.

To help offset the effects of the fuel price increases of Oct.
1, the government is giving Rp 100,000 (US$10) per month to poor
families across the country.

In Jakarta, 101,219 poor families were initially registered to
receive the money.

However, there are growing concerns over the accuracy of the
data provided by BPS Jakarta, with many experts saying most of
the recipients of the cash did not actually qualify for the
program.

The admission on Thursday was the first time BPS Jakarta has
acknowledged any errors in the gathering data on poor families in
the capital.

Among the yardsticks used to measure whether families
qualified for the assistance was how much money a household spent
on health care, clothing, education and food.

The agency said it had distributed a total of 78,775 cards
across the capital since late September.

Every recipient is entitled to receive Rp 100,000 in cash each
month, with the money being delivered every three months. State
postal company PT Posindo will be in charge of delivering the
cash payments.

Governor Sutiyoso promised earlier that his administration
would complete the distribution of the cards before Oct. 1, when
the government announced the fuel price increases. However, the
lengthy process of verifying those eligible for the program has
slowed the delivery of the cards.

Limited human resources coupled with densely populated areas
have also slowed the delivery of the cards.

BPS Jakarta employs just 250 officials, supported by 4,396
staff members, who must handle the entire process of identifying
and verifying recipients of the cash in 44 districts across the
city.

Sunari said his office had also received new reports that some
5,222 poor families had yet to be registered for the program.

"However, I have to make it clear that we have yet to verify
whether these 5,222 families meet the criteria for the program.
We must do this before giving them cards," he said.