Govt launches 'rice for the poor' program

Johannes Simbolon, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The National Logistics Agency (Bulog) will distribute a total of 2.35 million tons of low-priced rice to 9.79 million poor households across the country this year under the so-called "Rice for the Poor" program launched on Sunday.

Bulog's head Widjanarko Puspoyo said the rice would be sold at a price of Rp 1,000 (10.45 US cents) per kilogram and that each family would receive a total of 20 kilograms per month throughout the year.

In comparison, the lowest quality rice, IR 64, now sells for around Rp 3,000 per kilogram in many marketplaces across the country.

"We hope these rice allocations will be delivered to the needy this year and the program will be implemented properly and without any irregularities, as occurred in previous years," Widjanarko was quoted by Antara as saying when launching the program in the Kapuk district of Jakarta.

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro was present at the launch.

Widjanarko did not provide details of the mechanism through which the rice would be distributed.

At the peak of the economic crisis in 1998, when tens of millions of poor families suffered from a combination of soaring prices for many commodities and rice shortages due to drought, the government launched the so-called social safety net program, including rice distribution for the poor, funded by the World Bank.

The rice was distributed to poor families by the so-called Village Resilience Board (LKMD), which is known as a corrupt organization at the village and district administration level.

However, many irregularities were reported in the implementation of the program, including corrupt officials selling the rice at a price higher than that set by the government and rice being distributed to non-needy families.

Moreover, most of the funds allocated to the social safety net program fell prey to corruption by a number of politicians, due to a lack of adequate internal controls.

The World Bank stopped channeling funds to the program in 1999.

Widjanarko said Bulog would use the so-called "social compensation fund" to finance the "rice for the poor" program. The "social compensation funds" are those to be collected by the government as a result of the reduction in fuel subsidies planned for this year.

Purnomo earlier said the funds would total Rp 2.8 trillion, which would be used to finance various social programs, including Rp 500 billion for food programs.

Widjanarko admitted that there had been a number of deficiencies in the distribution of rice to the poor in previous years, but he said that the government had vowed not to repeat the same mistakes and was committed to constant improvements to the program.

"For this year's food for the poor program, Bulog together with the regional administrations has improved the records kept on poor families so that the program will not miss its targets," he said.

He said that, based on the government's data, there were 14.7 million families across the country who fell into the "poor" category and as such deserved to receive assistance under the "rice for the poor" program. But the government this year can only afford to provide sufficient rice funds for 9.79 million poor families.

Bulog would distribute 200,000 tons of rice across the country under the program this month, he said.

In the past, many poor families complained that Bulog had distributed low-quality rice to them.

Widjanarko said the agency would use locally-produced rice in the program, but provided an assurance of its quality.

"For sure, the color of rice that we shall distribute is not as white as the imported rice's because that is how the locally- produced rice looks, except for the rojolele rice.

"But I can guarantee that the rice is edible and soft," he said.