Govt to tie cash aid to education, family planning

Govt to tie cash aid to education, family planning

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite the recent controversy it has caused, the government will
carry on with its direct cash aid for poor families to compensate
for the fuel price hike, intending to impose certain requirements
on recipients by next year.

The government also reported that the direct cash aid scheme
has during the first month of its implementation already reached
some two-thirds of the eligible low-income households it had been
intended for.

State Minister for National Development Planning Sri Mulyani
Indrawati said on Monday the government had disbursed Rp 3.11
trillion (some US$310 million) in total funds for the cash aid,
from an allocated Rp 4.65 trillion.

The fund has been disbursed to a total of 10.38 million low-
income households, or some 67 percent of an eligible 15.5 million
families, she said.

The government implemented the direct cash subsidy scheme to
cushion the effects of a second fuel price hike on the country's
poor. The government more than doubled the average price of oil-
based fuels in October, to prevent a surge in global oil prices
from forcing an increase in the country's fuel subsidies and
jeopardizing fiscal stability.

Under the scheme,the government provides Rp 300,000 in cash
every three months to low-income households that the Central
Statistics Agency (BPS) has surveyed and verified as eligible.
The funds can be collected in person at the nearest post office.

The scheme is among the largest welfare programs of its kind
in the world. As a comparison, a similar Bolsa Familia program
which has been implemented over the past two years in Brazil,
only accommodates some eight million families.

Controversy has, however, surrounded the direct cash subsidy
scheme, due to the deaths of several elderly people while queuing
for the aid, and clashes with those frustrated because they were
denied the funds.

A total of 4.19 million families have so far asked the BPS to
reevaluate them for eligibility to receive the aid.

Critics have also slammed the scheme as encouraging mendicancy
among the poor, suggesting it be replaced instead with a
conditional subsidy scheme or empowering people through providing
work in labor-intensive development projects.

Sri Mulyani acknowledged that the scheme had its shortcomings,
and that the government would improve it over time.

"We will continue to monitor and evaluate the implementation
of the scheme, so that its purpose of maintaining the purchasing
power of the poor can be achieved," she said.

"A total of 158,128 compensation cards have been retracted
after it turned out that their recipients were not eligible."

Sri Mulyani also said the fund disbursement and any additional
household registration would be better coordinated in the future
between the BPS, the local administration and the police.

She also mentioned the government would tie the scheme with
requirements -- including the family providing education for
their children and implementing family planning -- by April next
year.

In Mexico, a similar scheme is tied with the requirement that
the families receiving the aid will guarantee that their children
will at least accomplish basic education.

For next year, the government has allocated Rp 17 trillion in
funds for the direct subsidy scheme, in which Rp 2 trillion will
be used to fund a conditional subsidy pilot project.