City blames the poor for rejecting subsidized rice

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite the fact that the Jakarta administration is still evaluating possible problems in the distribution of subsidized rice over the past three months, an official was quick to blame those entitled to the rice for the fact that some had to be returned to the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

"Not all of the targeted poor families were willing to buy the subsidized rice. That's why we could not get rid of it 100 percent," Rohana Manggala, the assistant to the city secretary for people's welfare, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The subsidized rice is priced at only Rp 1,000 per kilogram, much cheaper than the market price of around Rp 3,700 per kilogram for rice of similar quality.

Rohana added that many of those entitled under the scheme preferred to hold out for free rice, like that provided by the United Nations' World Food Program, which distributes about 2,400 tons of free rice every month to poor residents who don't have Jakarta identity cards.

A copy of a report from the Bulog, which maintains the state's food buffer stocks, was made available to the Post on Tuesday. This shows that the uptake of subsidized rice in January and February of this year hovered at 92 percent, while as of March 24, uptake had reached 82 percent.

The city administration plans to distribute 28,278 tons of affordable rice to at least 117,825 poor families across the capital this year, or around 2,168 tons per month.

"The uptake this year is well above the levels reported over the past few years, which ranged between 83 and 87 percent," Rohana said.

She acknowledged that in the past, the levels of uptake were lower owing to poor coordination between government agencies coupled with a lack of data about who was entitled.

According to Rohana, the data on poor families currently being used by the administration was not 100 percent accurate so that "we need the respective subdistrict administrations to help verify it."

For the purposes of the cheap rice scheme, the administration uses 2004 data from the National Family Planning Board (BKKBN).

An evaluation made by the Jakarta Planning Board (Bapeda) on the distribution of subsidized rice in 2002 and 2003 showed that the administration was still often not reaching those entitled due to the lack of data.

"Poor coordination among the relevant governmental offices during distribution has also contributed to the fact that the program missed its targets," the evaluation says.

It also revealed that the subdistrict administrations, which are in charge of distributing the rice, had fail to comprehensively report on the progress made to the administration.

Bidara Cina subdistrict in South Jakarta was one of those that had failed to account for the operation of the scheme during 2000/2001, which in this subdistrict's case involved rice worth Rp 31 million.

The subdistrict office has claimed that it cannot hand over the money to the administration as it gave the rice away free to needy residents in the subdistrict, who have been repeatedly hit by floods.

Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo, however, emphasized that the administration would thoroughly investigate the case to ensure that there were no irregularities involved.

"We have to pursue the case although it involves a relatively small amount of money. We must alert people to the fact that they have to report properly on the distribution of the cheap rice to the administration," Fauzi said.

Subsidized rice from 2001 to 2004

Year Number of poor families Value in rupiah
2001 52,885 2.1 billion
2002 156,551 6.2 billion
2003 not available 7.1 billion
2004 122,212 not available

Sources: Bapeda, Bulog