Post-Disaster Aid to Be Distributed Gradually, Local Governments Urged to Continuously Update Data
The pattern of aid distribution is carried out gradually based on data submitted by the affected local governments.
The Head of the Post-Disaster Recovery Task Force (Satgas PRR) for Sumatra, Muhammad Tito Karnavian, explained that this scheme was chosen so that aid can be felt immediately by the community without having to wait for the entire data collection process to be completed.
He explained that field conditions during the disaster make the data collection process take longer because the affected residents are scattered to remote and inland areas.
According to him, if aid distribution must wait for the entire data collection to be fully completed, the community’s recovery process will run much more slowly. In fact, houses in the categories of minor and moderate damage have the potential to experience more severe damage due to delayed repairs.
“If we wait for the local government’s data collection to finish because the affected victims are spread widely, the data collection will be very slow. What happens is that minor and moderate damaged houses will become more damaged because they are not repaired while waiting for aid from the centre,” said Tito in a written statement on Thursday (7/5/2026).
He emphasised that the central government can only disburse cash aid if the data from local governments has been verified. Therefore, the Satgas PRR has decided that aid distribution will be carried out gradually according to the available and validated data.
“That’s why I decided that aid will be given gradually. Data on affected residents that is already available from local governments will immediately be verified by BPS and the aid will be directly disbursed by BNPB or the Ministry of Social Affairs,” he explained.
Tito added that local governments are still given room to continuously update data on affected communities if more residents are found who have not yet been included in the list of aid recipients. This additional data will then be re-verified by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) before the aid is disbursed by the relevant ministries and agencies.
“If there are more that were missed by the local government, please propose again, re-verify by BPS, then disburse the aid again through BNPB and the Ministry of Social Affairs,” said Tito.
He emphasised that this gradual approach is taken solely to accelerate the recovery of affected communities so that aid can immediately provide real benefits to survivors in the field.
Based on Satgas PRR data, the distribution of various aids continues to be carried out in the affected areas, covering life guarantee aid, housing contents aid, economic stimulus aid, aid for repairing minor and moderate damaged houses, as well as the disbursement of Temporary Housing Funds (DTH).
“The residents are already shouting for aid. If we wait too long for the data collection to be totally completed, the community’s life will become even more difficult because the aid has not yet arrived,” Tito concluded.