Cards for poor families distributed
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.