Minister blames local govts for malnutrition
Rendi A. Witular and ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Surabaya
Regional autonomy is to blame for the recent high number of cases of malnutrition in some provinces, as local governments have failed to extend enough state funds to the poor, a minister said.
Minister of Health Siti Fadillah Supari said much of the state funds did not reach people living below the poverty line but the central government could no longer supervise and direct the fund allocation since the inception of regional autonomy in 2001.
"The malnutrition cases were partly triggered by provincial administrations which refused to cooperate with the central government in the management of the funds," Siti said after a meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla here on Monday.
Also present were Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab and West Nusa Tenggara Governor Lalu Serinata.
Under the autonomy law, local administrations are given freedom in the use of funds to be spent on health, education and other social affairs.
"The communication lines between the central and regional administrations have been cut off by the autonomy law. Frankly speaking, the Ministry of Health no longer has access to the situation in the regions," said Siti.
Malnutrition in West Nusa Tenggara made the headlines recently after the local administration revealed that eight children aged under five years old had died of marasmus, or advanced malnutrition. The province, which is a horticultural farming area, is in the country's rice belt and is a major rice producer.
Siti said that in the first six months of this year some 655 children under five were suffering from severe malnutrition. However, the figure was lower compared to 1,500 affected in the same period last year.
She insisted that malnutrition was commonplace in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, Alwi said the government managed only to allocate Rp 50,000 (US$5.26) per day for each of around 250,000 integrated service posts across the country to provide health care for poor children.
"We will intensify the operation of the posts after several years of letting their activities lapse. I heard from Governor Lalu that malnutrition was the result of the absence of such a facility," said Alwi.
The government, he added, would cooperate with the World Food Program and the Indonesian Red Cross to dispatch free food supplements, such as biscuits, vitamins and milk, for thousands of children of poor families in West Nusa Tenggara.
To improve their economic condition, the government will provide seeds for farmers there.
The poor families whose children are suffering from malnutrition in the province do not own land and are working for farmers.
In Surabaya, the head of a farmers organization in East Nusa Tenggara, Alex Abanat, said malnutrition had affected the province and could develop to severe malnutrition because local people could no longer afford to buy rice.
Alex said that with its distribution disrupted, rice was sold at Rp 3,000 per kilogram in many places, triple the price of cheap rice offered by the government for the poor.
"People have turned to rice for a long time, but now they cannot buy it at an affordable price because the commodity can hardly be found," he said on the sidelines of a national farmers and fishermen's forum in Surabaya.
The provincial government has extended loans to poor families to run small businesses, but Alex said most of the people had spent it on basic commodities.
"Now they have run out of money to buy rice, not to mention other needs," he said.
Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriantono, who opened the forum, said the government had provided Rp 15 billion to help farmers obtain water for their crops.