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)