HNW Urges Government to Fix Decile System, Fears Social Assistance Misses Target
Deputy Speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) Hidayat Nur Wahid (HNW) has cautioned the government, through the relevant ministries, not to allow the controversy surrounding the decile system to drag on.
HNW believes there have been many public complaints about the decile system, which has caused various problems. In this case, the system is considered not to reflect actual conditions on the ground, directly resulting in the termination of social assistance that people had been receiving.
“I have repeatedly received the aspirations of citizens who are troubled by decile determinations that do not match their economic status, resulting in the termination of social assistance they had long received. There are also various public complaints regarding the difficulty of proposing or contesting decile classifications when they discover such discrepancies. If this is not promptly addressed, it is feared that these cases could thwart the noble purpose of social assistance because it misses the target and creates distrust that the government is serious about implementing social protection programmes in accordance with the constitutional mandate,” HNW said in a statement on Saturday (29/8/2026).
The member of the House of Representatives (DPR) from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction noted that Article 34 paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia explicitly states that the state shall develop a social security system for all the people and empower the weak and underprivileged in accordance with human dignity.
According to him, the context of human dignity should reflect real conditions, not merely be based on statistical methods that can be biased in estimating family welfare levels.
“Moreover, in our society there are many cases that are not captured in the data, such as the use of identities by other people, ownership of inherited assets without monthly income, the large number of dependent family members, the high cost of living that is disproportionate to income, and others,” he stressed.
HNW understands that the decile ranking originates from the National Socio-Economic Integrated Data (DTSEN), which is expected to become the single data source for all ministries and agencies.
“From the beginning, we in Commission VIII of the DPR have pushed for this single data system, with the assumption that its data accuracy would help social assistance programmes be implemented properly and correctly. However, in its implementation, it has evidently caused many problems that harm the public, so there must be improvements, both in the ranking system and in the distribution and use of the data across various social assistance programmes,” he continued.
He cited the Indonesia Smart Programme and the Indonesia Smart Card as programmes that have generated many public complaints. According to him, the use of the decile system in these programmes needs to be corrected immediately.
This is because access to secondary and higher education is needed not only by people in the poor and extreme poor categories, but also by the vulnerable poor and those moving towards the middle class.
“For this reason, corrective steps must be taken immediately, including improving the ranking system, strengthening ground checks to align with realities on the ground, accelerating the proposal and appeal process, and synchronising with equitable social protection policies. If these steps are taken, hopefully social assistance programmes will truly be implemented well and on target, so that public complaints resulting from the inaccurate decile system, which has claimed many victims, can soon be answered,” he concluded.