JP/ /POOR

Accountability key to poverty eradication programs

A. Junaidi The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Indonesia has had a series of poverty eradication programs over the past 20 years. Soeharto's New Order regime was hailed for the decline in the number of poor, particularly from 1970 to 1995, from 70 percent to 10 percent in 1995.

However, people living just above the poverty line, analysts said, were highly vulnerable as long as they were without steady jobs. This has become more evident since the monetary crisis began in 1997.

As part of urgent programs carried out with international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the Social Safety Net program began.

But reports of leakage and that the funds were not reaching the most needy eventually led to the halting of the program. In its place programs like the disbursement of free rice to the poor were introduced. Yet again, 74 percent of recipients are those who are not poor, as noted by the World Bank's brief this month to the donor group, the Consultative Group for Indonesia.

Despite such programs, the report said "households in Indonesia are extremely vulnerable to falling into poverty" with most people earning less than US$2 a day. It added that 53 percent of Indonesians lack access to at least one basic service such as clean water.

Further, poor targeting of such programs led to the fact that "of the Rp 4.83 trillion allocated to Bulog in 2003, over half went as subsidy to the non-poor, almost a third was absorbed by Bulog (National Logistics Agency) in operating costs and profits, and only 18 percent went to the poor."

A lack of accountability has been blamed for the failure of such programs.

"All the programs have 100 percent failed. After the funds were disbursed, nobody reported it," Poverty Eradication Committee (KPK) secretary Gunawan Sumodisastro told The Jakarta Post recently.

While the government had failed, people could not help themselves out of poverty either: Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti has said the 7 percent of economic growth needed to create jobs for an average annual workforce of 2.5 million was not feasible in the next few years.

Poverty is simply the inability to meet certain standards of basic needs, such as food, clothing and housing. BPS revealed that the number of people living in poverty reached 37.1 million in 2001 and increased to 38.5 million last year.

This year's poor people are predicted to increase due to continued low economic growth, natural disasters and the percentage of population growth approaching 2 percent. Major incidents such as the Bali bombing affected the economy of virtually an entire province, at the very least.

Since last year, programs related to poverty eradication were coordinated by the KPK. Accountability is supposed to be more clear; it is led by Coordinating Minister for Peoples' Welfare Jusuf Kalla himself. The program now also involves universities and business associations apart from non-government organizations -- many of whose track records were questionable regarding disbursement of funds to the poor in the Safety Net program.

Last year, the government allocated a total of Rp 2.96 trillion for poverty eradication programs, which were managed by 10 ministries and other government institutions.

The government allocated an additional Rp 4.4 trillion for the poor in all provinces affected by fuel price hikes this year.

But according to a recent survey conducted by researchers from several universities, most of the funds did not reach the poor. Some ministries and institutions overlapped one another in work related to similar targets. Abuse was reported in the form of the inclusion of regular programs in proposals of poverty eradication programs, in order to secure more funds.

Free health cards, financed by the fuel price increase subsidy fund, were reportedly sold to wealthier people.

In Jakarta, subdistricts' officers could not identify the poor, merely defined as people with Jakarta identity cards.

Officials with Bappenas said that regional administrators, feeling empowered by regional autonomy, also arranged their own programs while results could not be easily monitored.

The regional administrations often claimed they knew their areas best and rejected government supervision.

Worse, no institution in the provinces submitted reports on the disbursement of the funds. KPK so far has no data on how much money has been used.

Now the government has announced new policies in its "White Paper" including in poverty reduction. Things will be just the same again if the main factors -- such as corruption -- which led to the failure of earlier programs are allowed to be repeated.

Until problems related to, among other things, the absence of a credible and clean body that can manage funds for the poor are overcome, any poverty eradication program would only be a waste of money without reducing the number of the poor in the country.