No leakage?

For some people, allegations of social safety net fund misuse may be simply a case of "misappropriated" money -- that is to say, funds did not reach their intended subjects and were used for other purposes. That, as some people may argue, is not necessarily wrong. What do donors, and especially outsiders or taxpayers know about real priorities?

What though, are we ordinary lay people to think when a senior official in charge of economic affairs at the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) admits almost half of the World Bank funds made available in the past fiscal year to help the poor -- Rp 8 trillion out of a total of Rp 17.9 trillion -- were somehow "misappropriated", or used for other purposes?

The funds were intended to be part of what is referred to as the social safety net, which donors are helping the government set up to alleviate the suffering of people most affected by the ongoing economic crisis. By reducing the suffering of millions of disadvantaged people across the nation -- many of whom we do not give a second thought to -- we can help those people survive and, perhaps even more importantly, remove some from the dangerous potential attraction of increased unrest and a rising crime rate.

Obviously, allaying that danger should be high on our priority list, or all our current efforts to put our economy and our political system back on track will have little meaning. Many bureaucrats are steeped in a routine of putting the interests of their respective sectors of responsibility first. This in itself is not improper, however, the bureaucrats are inclined to seize whatever opportunity presents itself to accomplish their defensible goals, whether it be repairing roads and bridges, buying hospital equipment or paying for expenses run up by government ministries and other state institutions.

It could be worse. The Indonesian mind-set, conditioned by decades of bureaucratic mismanagement and malfeasance, tends to link all government projects to opportunities for graft. The exposure in recent months of such practices has not helped restore public trust in the bureaucracy -- or to be more precise, those who are in charge of government projects.

For this reason clarification provided by Bappenas deputy chairman for economic affairs Gunawan Sumodiningrat, that "there have been no leaks", despite the misallocation of some Rp 8 trillion in social safety net funds, has had little effect in quelling public misgivings. Indeed, the explanation from another Bappenas deputy chairman, Herman Haeruman, that the money was misappropriated because there were "different interpretations of the definition of what constituted a social safety net", only helped to worsen suspicions.

Well-intentioned as all the social safety net donations may be, they could also be easily misused to disguise political campaigns of parties with close ties to the government. Such factors lend considerable weight to demands that non-governmental organizations and other independent parties become involved in the management of funds. Alternatively, they suggest the suspension of all donations until after the general election.

The best solution would be for all interested parties to agree before too long on a common scheme to ensure funds reach the subjects for whom they are intended -- the poor and the jobless. Failing that, there seems to be no other choice than to suspend the aid for the time being. After all, salutary as the scheme may be in principle, there is no point in wasting money on pampering political parties or on people who do not need it.