Free food handed out to stave off rioting

JAKARTA (JP): Governor Sutiyoso's plan to provide free staple food for needy residents is aimed at deterring people from staging street demonstrations, a city official said yesterday.

Head of the city's Regional Economic Bureau (Binekda) Hari Sandjojo said it would comfort many people to know the municipality was ready to help them if there was an "emergency" situation.

"In certain situations, it would be better for the authorities to give away food rather than have angry and hungry people staging protests on the streets which, in turn, could ignite riots," Sandjojo told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

"Again I say, it depends on the situation."

On Thursday, Governor Sutiyoso urged people in the capital not to stage strikes or street protests as the economic crisis was affecting almost every business and activity here.

He even invited starving residents to collect free foodstuffs, such as rice and noodles, from nearby government offices or special posts designed by the municipality to provide free supplies.

"Residents, especially low-income people, who can not afford to buy food to eat, must be helped," the governor said.

"If you're hungry, please come to nearby government offices or staple food posts where we'll provide you with free basic food.

"But don't start riots over such things because we're all in a jam here."

But Sutiyoso provided no details about, for instance, the addresses of food posts and government offices or the criteria to be met for residents to receive assistance.

Hari Sandjodo said the governor may have been referring to the huge number of food packages donated recently by some privately owned companies here.

"As far as I know, there is no free staple food being prepared or expected to be prepared by the municipality, except the donations from private companies." he said.

"We simply could not afford to give away staple food to everyone, that is why the donations from the private sector are very helpful."

One of the mass food packages from the country's businesspeople was handed over to the municipality Thursday.

The 100,000 packages of foodstuffs, worth Rp 2.7 billion, were handed over by tycoons Sudono Salim and Sukamdani Sahid Gitosardjono and a group of other businesspeople.

Each package contains five kilograms of rice, 40 packets of instant noodles, a liter of cooking oil and 20 sachets of soy sauce.

On the same day, the administration received a Rp 2.43 billion donation from Citra Group, run by President Soeharto's eldest daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana or Mbak Tutut.

The company said its managers provided one month's salary and the employees contributed half of their monthly wage.

After handing over the assistance to Sutiyoso, Tutut said: "What we give is not much... but hopefully it will ease the burden. Lets pray that we get more money so we can donate again later." (edt/ind)