NGO bemoans poor public understanding of aid process

JAKARTA (JP): An NGO official said on Tuesday that the general public's misunderstanding of fund disbursement was the biggest obstacle for the organization to properly implement its community recovery program.

The program, introduced last September to help the poor in food security and in doing small-time business following the economic crisis that hit the country in late 1997, is sponsored by foreign donor countries.

"The government's social safety net program, which applies a simple process of fund disbursement, has prompted the public to believe that they can also receive aid in such a simple way from non-governmental organizations (NGOs)," the monitoring manager of the Community Recovery Program (CRP), Hanni Adiati Hadi, told The Jakarta Post.

Hanni said it took around seven months for the CRP, a consortium of 27 NGOs in Indonesia, to study proposals from communities before deciding whether they deserve to receive aid. Some NGOs, however, can disburse funds to the poor within a month or two.

She regretted the attitude of many would-be recipients who did not understand the responsibility of the CRP and accused the organization of holding back aid allocated for them.

"We have to carefully study proposals for aid because the donor countries ask for our financial report every two months," she said, adding that the tight procedure was meant to ensure that donor countries retained their trust in the organization.

CRP, set up in September 1998 by social activist Erna Witoelar and former minister Emil Salim, has raised Rp 100 billion (US$13.4 million) from four foreign governments.

The organization has 177 ongoing recovery projects in Indonesia, with eight of them in the troubled province of Maluku. The United Nations Development Program also audited the organization's financial report, Hanni said. (04)