Govt to extend social safety net spending period

Govt to extend social safety net spending period

JAKARTA (JP): The director general of the budget at the
Ministry of Finance, Darsjah, said on Friday that the government
would revise spending on the multibillion dollar social safety
net program next month following recent findings of corruption
and inefficiency.

He said the revision would allow the government to extend the
first phase of the program, which was supposed to be completed by
the end of the 1998/1999 fiscal year in March, to June.

"The budget for the social safety net program will be reviewed
in the middle of March," he was quoted by Antara as saying on the
sidelines of a debate session on the 1999/2000 state budget
proposal with the House of Representatives Commission VIII for
state budget and finance.

"If by the end of March we haven't reached the target, the
disbursement of the social safety net aid will be extended until
June," he added.

The 1998/1999 state budget for the social safety net program,
which was designed to help the poor survive the country's worst
economic crisis in three decades, amounts to Rp 17.99 trillion.

The government admitted recently that the targeted group had
received less than half of the Rp 12.60 trillion in funds which
had been disbursed by December. The rest was still held up by
officials.

The trickle pace of aid disbursement to the public,
particularly significant in the Jakarta area, was attributed to
the overly bureaucratic attitude of aid administration officials,
who insisted that recipients have a legal identity card.

Mar'ie Muhammad, chairman of the aid monitoring team,
criticized the reluctance of the officials, saying that most very
poor people in society would not have the identity card for
"obvious reasons."

Several opposition leaders, however, were against the
government's plan to prolong the social safety net spending into
June, arguing that this could be used by the current
administration to win popularity ahead of the June 7 general
election.

The general election is expected to become the country's first
open and fair election after more than 30 years under the
authoritarian rule of former president Soeharto.

Separately, the International NGO Forum on Indonesian
Development (INFID) urged the World Bank, which is one of the
leading sponsors of the social safety net program, to postpone
the disbursement of assistance funds until major changes were
made to the program's design and methodology.

It said in a statement that chronic deficiencies in the
planning, implementation, and monitoring carried out by the
government were primarily to blame for the slow pace of the
program.

"Only in this way can the World Bank reduce the likelihood of
repeating past mistakes in Indonesia, and help to uphold good and
clean governance in order to mitigate the devastating impact of
the economic crisis on the poor in Indonesia," IFID said.

The Bank had been criticized for continuing to provide loans
to the country regardless off the corruption prevalent in the
former Soeharto regime, which some blame for the current economic
crisis.

The government is proposing some Rp 20 trillion to finance the
social safety net program in the next 1999/2000 fiscal year.
(rei)