Number of poor people decreasing: Expert

JAKARTA (JP): The number of poor people in Indonesia has been decreasing rapidly the last 25 years, an expert said yesterday.

In a seminar held at Open University, Nurimansjah Hasibuan, the university's School of Economics' dean said that, on the other hand, there are strong indications that the social gap has been increasing.

He said the gap has been caused a concentration of wealth in certain hands.

He said to overcome the problem the government has started a project of providing aid to the least developed villages.

"It is a very good program," Hasibuan said.

"Our villages are very poor compared to the urban centers," he said.

He said that a low educational level, high birth rate, large families and inadequate health care are common indicators of the least-developed villages.

In order to improve the people's lives, Nurimansjah urged the government to employ more supervisors, in order to give the villagers better information about the program.

Hasibuan said most villagers have not received complete information about the aid.

"Ambiguous information has confused them," he said.

Some of the villagers did not want to accept the aid because, they said, "they did not want to have any credit," he added.

According to Hasibuan, the least-developed villages need clear information about the aid because the program aims at improving the local people's life.

Hasibuan told reporters during a break in the seminar that 70 percent of the national economy is dominated by private companies.

"These companies control everything, including the government, because of their power," he added.

Hasibuan, who is also a professor at the Sriwijaya University in Palembang, said minimizing the social gap can be done by increasing investments in places "which have been victims of the government policy."

He said the government should also give priority to infrastructure in villages, so that local private companies can take part in the development.

He said the effort will be very beneficial for the villages in a long term because it can become a source of economic development.

"The government should arrange the infrastructure and let the private sector take part in the development later," he said.

"The government will continue to function well without letting itself to be monopolized by the companies," he said.

According to Hasibuan, private companies should be controlled by a "strong and clean" government to avoid negative tendencies.(05)