Cards for poor families distributed
The Jakarta Post, Bandung/Makassar/Medan
State postal company PT Pos Indonesia, which has been given the task of printing special cards for those entitled to government assistance funds, has printed and distributed 3.6 million cards in 15 towns across the country.
This accounts for 23 percent of the cards that will be distributed to 15,648,425 low-income families which will receive Rp 300,000 (nearly US$30) in assistance funds over three months. The aid is intended to ease the impact of the fuel price hike scheduled to come into effect on Oct. 1.
The company's president director, Hana Suryana, expected all the cards to be printed by Oct. 11.
In the coming three days, the company would print 2.4 million entitlement cards.
The government has identified the families which will be entitled to receive the cash handouts based on a survey conducted by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS). Only families with a gross monthly income of Rp 700,000 or less are eligible to receive the assistance. The money will be paid out in three stages, starting on Saturday.
The overall number of those entitled looks set to increase, however, as the BPS has yet to conduct surveys in the tsunami- struck regencies of South Nias and North Nias on Nias island.
An official with the provincial office of the BPS, Panusunan Siregar, told The Jakarta Post that his office was cooperating with donor countries to update population data in the two regencies, including the number of poor families. It was hoped that the survey would be completed next Monday in order not to slow the distribution of the assistance.
"We don't yet know how many people are left after the tsunami, let alone the number of people entitled to the aid," Panusunan said.
The latest survey in 2002 revealed that the island was inhabited by some 670,000 people. The Dec. 26 tsunami and another major earthquake in March left hundreds of people dead and missing in the two regencies.
Meanwhile. poor families in the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar are facing the possibility of delays in receiving their payments as the provincial office of the BPS had yet to receive recipient entitlement cards as of Tuesday. It also had to verify the latest data received from Jakarta on the number of poor people in the province.
Makassar is among the first 14 towns where the government is scheduled to distribute the cash on Oct. 1.
Local BPS official Diah Utami said the process of verifying the data on entitled aid recipients provided by the Jakarta office could take two or three days to complete.
"We will have to receive the cards on Wednesday at the latest to ensure that the aid payments go ahead as planned. Poor families in Makassar may not get the assistance on time," Diah said.
According to the BPS, there are 452,468 poor families across South Sulawesi, 63,811 of them living in Makassar.
PT Pos and BRI have been appointed to distribute the assistance funds.
PT Pos spokesman Arief Setyanto said that to avoid forgery, each PT Pos or BRI office would scan recipient entitlement cards using ultra violet rays to ensure their validity. Each card also had a bar code which would need computer verification.
"There are altogether seven items on each card to prevent forgery," Arief said, but refused to go into the details.
Cashiers are also required to verify the cards manually.