Disbursement of emergency fund delayed again without any reason

JAKARTA (JP): The disbursement of an emergency fund amounting to Rp 109.52 billion, aimed at empowering poor city residents hard hit by a prolonged economic crisis, is being delayed again without any clear reason.

Several heads of the Village Resilience Board (LKMD) assigned to be in charge of channeling the aid said that they had yet to receive the fund as of Friday, even though the deadline for the disbursement was set for Jan. 15 at the latest.

LKMD's East Jakarta Pondok Bambu subdistrict head, Marsudi, said: "The fund actually should have been disbursed in early January but the deadline was postponed until Jan. 15."

The disbursement was postponed because of discrepancies in its proposed usage. Instead of planning to use the fund to help the poor, some board members proposed it be used to purchase various items, including vehicles, water treatment machines, horses, uniforms and computers.

"Up to the moment it has not been disbursed, whereas the first stage of the program should be finished in mid-March.

"The program is scheduled to continue with the second stage, which was expected to be completed by the end of March," said Marsudi, reported Antara.

He said it was impossible that the program could be successful if its time was so short.

The city development planning board's head, Bambang Sungkono, announced recently that 256 LKMDs throughout the city would be given part of the fund to help the needy by Jan. 15 at the latest.

About Rp 106.77 billion of the aid will be channeled directly to LKMDs through the state's Bank Rakyat Indonesia with the remainder set aside for management and operational costs.

Councillors and activists had warned against misuse of the aid, saying that it would be used as money politics because the board members usually consisted of people close to the government or the ruling Golkar political grouping.

The program, which is funded by the National Development Planning Board, is conducted under the auspices of the PDMDKE, a program designed to help people cope with the worst impacts of the economic crisis.

Marsudi said that since early January, the board had actually been ready to start the program, which was expected to involve 1,850 people living below the poverty line and 1,300 people who were dismissed during the economic crisis.

He said that his board alone would receive Rp 810 million, of which 65 percent would be lent to small businesspeople and 35 percent to finance small development projects, such as repairing roads and drains and constructing a small mosque.

Representatives of LKMDs in Kedoya Utara subdistrict, West Jakarta; Kamal Muara, North Jakarta; and Mampang Prapatan, South Jakarta, also complained about the delay in the disbursement.

Some city residents contacted last week said that they knew nothing about the availability of the fund.

A Blue Bird taxi driver, identified only as S.E., said that he had neither heard about the aid from the head of his neighborhood nor from the subdistrict head himself -- the people in charge of informing their subdistricts about the aid.

"How could I not know of this? I definitely would rather leave this 14-hour job and feed myself on the aid," said S.E., a resident of the Rawabuaya subdistrict, of East Jakarta, where at least 15,819 families lived below the poverty line, the second largest number in the city after West Jakarta.

Mina, a housemaid in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, said that she would definitely "advise" her jobless husband to inquire about the aid. (ind/ylt)