Govt dismisses reports of social safety net fund misuse

JAKARTA (JP): Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare and Poverty Eradication Haryono Suyono dismissed on Friday reports of alleged misuse of Rp 8 trillion (US$890 million) of social safety net funds, arguing it was only a matter of "imbalance between supply and demand".

Haryono said the only problem facing the government was that there were more poor people than could be covered by the money allocated for the 1998/1999 fiscal year.

"It is not a matter of (the money being given to) the wrong targets, but not all of the targeted poor people can be helped," Haryono said after attending a meeting of the Council for Enforcing Security and Law at the State Guest House chaired by President B.J. Habibie.

Gunawan Sumodiningrat, deputy head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), revealed in a seminar on Thursday that at least Rp 8 trillion of the total Rp 17.9 trillion social safety net funds for the 1998/1999 fiscal year had failed to reach its intended targets, namely laid-off workers and people facing food shortages.

Bappenas' deputy head of regional affairs, Herman Haeruman, said only about Rp 9 trillion of the funds had been properly channeled to provide subsidized rice for the poor, and to subsidize agriculture, health care and education.

The World Bank has told Bappenas to stop using the funds for labor-intensive projects and poverty alleviation programs, said Herman.

The World Bank has delayed the payment of a US$600 million loan to Indonesia, scheduled to be disbursed on March 31, because the government failed to provide a reliable system to monitor the allocation of the money for its poverty-alleviation program.

Opposition parties and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) alleged the government had used the money to ensure votes.

The World Bank has pledged Indonesia $4.5 billion as part of a wider bailout package led by the International Monetary Fund begun in 1997. It increased the pledge to $5.5 billion last year, but so far has yet to disburse even half of that amount.

"Now we are still negotiating with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, that (the program) can be implemented more appropriately next year," Haryono said.

Data

However, he acknowledged the government did not have comprehensive data on needy people before distributing the fund, and that it was therefore possible the money did not reach the most impoverished people.

"The data is ... not specifically prepared for the social safety net program," Haryono conceded.

On the same day, State Minister of National Development Planning Boediono said the government would not stop the program as it would worsen people's suffering.

"People will suffer more if it is stopped," said Boediono.

Boediono, also the Bappenas head, expressed his readiness to involve more NGOs and students in the program in order to help the government reach its objectives.

This offer, however, was criticized by outspoken economist Sri Mulyani as a half-hearted gesture. She also pointed out that the ruling Golkar party had, through the bureaucracy, claimed the money belonged to the party.

Wardah Hafidz, coordinator of Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), criticized Bappenas for holding only two workshops, attended by 300 people, for the fund disbursement.

"How can only 300 participants speak on behalf of the people, when the problem is so complex?" she was quoted by Antara as saying.

About 1,000 protesters from the City Poor People's Party marched to Bappenas on Thursday, demanding that the government stop the program because it only increased the burden on people.

They warned the World Bank would extend the money as a loan, not a donation, and that future generations would bear the burden of repaying those debts.

Meanwhile in Maumere regency, East Nusa Tenggara, a local health ministry official has allegedly deposited at least Rp 420 million of the social safety net fund allocated to the ministry to take advantage of the bank's lucrative interest rate.

Iskandar, however, insisted he put the money in the BRI bank to enable the office to quickly channel the fund to remote areas.

In Jakarta, Bambang Shergi Laksmono, a sociologist at the University of Indonesia, claimed that Jakarta city officials avoided poor people because they did not trust their ability to repay the safety net loans.

"The officials are afraid of failure if their clients (fund recipients) do not return the loan, and therefore they prioritize people who have permanent jobs," Bambang said in his doctoral dissertation.

Bambang defended his dissertation titled "Understanding the Access Problem in the Poverty Alleviation Program" in a ceremony at the university campus in Depok, West Java.

His study attempted to prove that government officials thought more about their own careers than serving the public interest. Their main concern was ensuring that recipients of the fund repay debts on time.

The officials had apparently also complained because they were given only two weeks to complete their tasks.

"Generally, sub-district officials must select, within two weeks, the poorest groups as the recipients of Rp 20 million fund allocated for each subdistrict," Antara quoted him as saying. (prb/yac)