East Timor refugees left out in cash aid

East Timor refugees left out in cash aid

The Jakarta Post, Kupang, Semarang

While many poor families have started to receive cash aid from
the government, more than 1,000 poor refugee families in Kupang
are missing out.

Muhazir Hornay, the refugee coordinator at the Noelbaki
shelter in Kupang Tengah, Kupang, said on Thursday that all of
the refugees had received identity cards and were recognized as
Indonesian citizens ahead of the legislative and presidential
elections last year. The group are from the former province of
East Timor, now Timor Leste.

"When we were declared Indonesian citizens, why didn't we get
rice for the poor or cash aid? Is there first and second-class
citizens in this country, meaning the local (Kupang residents)
receive the assistance while the refugees don't," Hornay said.

He said his people had no land to farm and still lived in
makeshift shelters built for them in 1999.

"During the elections, political parties and campaign teams
from presidential and vice presidential candidates came and
promised that our fate would change if we supported them. But the
fact is that now we're being neglected," Hornay said.

Meanwhile, a councilor from East Nusa Tenggara provincial
council, Thom Taebenu, blamed the Central Statistics Agency (BPS)
for leaving out thousands of poor families and listing rich
families instead.

"The council sees that the BPS has not been working very hard.
Why are refugees and poor residents not registered to receive the
Rp 100,000 (US$10) a month cash aid," Taebenu said.

Verification result of the early registration showed that
20,470 poor families in Kupang municipality were not on the list,
according to the head of East Nusa Tenggara province's Village
People Empowerment Agency, Willem Nope.

In his report to Governor Piet A. Tallo on Thursday, Nope also
said that only around 3,000 out of the listed 23,553 poor
families entitled to the cash aid in the city had actually
received the money. The report also mentioned that 674 ineligible
families faked cards to get the aid.

In Semarang, thousands of fuel compensation cards had been
returned back to the BPS office, often because the information on
them was incorrect.

Provincial BPS head Soehandono said on Thursday the office had
received 12,442 out of the distributed 2.4 million fuel
compensation cards. "I'm sure the number of fuel compensation
cards being returned to us will increase in number," Soehandono
said.

Under the scheme, each poor family receives a bulk sum of Rp
300,000 for three months but poor registration and distribution
systems have delayed the payments and caused protests in many
parts of the country in which two people died.

"We'll fix the data. In Semarang city alone, 288 cards have
been returned through each subdistricts," said Rusdiarto Harun
Subari of the BPS, adding that some 69,000 cards had been
distributed in the city.

He said the BPS has tried to prevent mistakenly listing poor
families -- data which came from village heads, subdistrict
offices and BPS staff.

A poor family, he added, should meet at least nine out of the
14 set-criteria to allow them to receive the cash aid. The
criteria included having a house with wooden or bamboo walls or
unplastered cement wall, not owning a bank account, and being
unable to pay for basic medical care.

"We'll try to spread information on the 14 criteria of poor
families. Let the people learn on their own whether they're poor
or not, so there won't be protests."