Prolonged economic crisis adds more fuel to the fire

Prolonged economic crisis adds more fuel to the fire

By Ati Nurbaiti

JAKARTA (JP): Meisi, a toddler in Tasikmalaya, West Java, was
killed early December when her neighbor, a food vendor, caused an
accident when trying to snatch her earrings to buy food.

Earlier in the year, mothers began replacing costly milk
formula with tajin, the water left from cooking rice, which
alarmed experts said contained very little nutrients.

The very young, and the sick among poor families, were among
the first victims when the crisis hit.

Many among the not-so-poor also braced for the loss of their
jobs as relatives and neighbors worked shorter hours or were
dismissed. Amid the soaring prices of food and medicine, and the
stress accompanying it, people hoped they would not fall sick for
fear of not being able to afford treatment, let alone becoming
unemployed.

Amid little social insurance, when companies were cutting down
on staff the fired employees knew they had to fend for
themselves, and people tried to dabble in all sorts of
businesses.

As more firms closed down, officials no longer chased street
vendors like they used to. Peddling on the streets, or even
begging, were still viewed as being better than starving or
stealing.

In March, women grouped in the Voice of Concerned Mothers
protested over the soaring prices of milk formula and other basic
needs in the heart of the capital.

The small group were among the first whose demands reflected
the widespread hardships, and student rallies across the country
repeated calls to bring prices down.

An unprecedented protest in Surabaya involved physicians,
nurses and patients from a state hospital protesting the high
prices of food and medicine.

Emergency funds were secured and distribution was entrusted
through the National Development Planning Baord, and networks of
non-governmental organizations.

The safety net funds of Rp 17.25 trillion, excluding funds
from donors, were aimed to support, among others things,
education, health services, food subsidies and labor intensive
programs.

The government has acknowledged that only 21 percent of the
social safety net budget was used during the first half of the
fiscal year, mainly because of worries over the possibility of
corruption and leakage.

Erna Witoelar, facilitator of the Community Recovery Program
consisting of NGOs distributing funds to rural societies, has
also expressed fears of leakage. According to the Kontan business
tabloid, she questioned credibility of parties distributing the
funds and said there were NGOs which were only two days old.

The transfer of funds through state post offices, without
passing the bureaucracy so notorious for siphoning off a piece of
any amount passing under its nose, was one method which would
hopefully ensure all the money reached the needy. But a more
clear supervision method is yet to be in place.

Forgotten

The government said it would be effective and efficient -- but
was hesitant in making sure which data on poor families should be
used, which threatened a delay in meeting urgent needs among
millions of people.

Authorities in some areas gave up on waiting for updates on
data on poor people as many more people than the designated
figures desperately lined up for subsidized rice, which was
selling for Rp 1,000 per kilogram.

Reports of undernourished children, to the point of suffering
from severe malnutrition, were followed by revelations of other
forms of acute nutritional deficiencies -- which had been
declared largely eliminated from the country 20 years ago.

Years of hard work of promoting healthy, balanced diets for
families were forgotten as parents struggled to meet most basic
needs. Eggs, which reached Rp 8,000 per kilogram, were among the
foods families cut down on; tempeh, the protein-rich soybean
cake, usually relied on by low-income families, was cut into
thinner slices by traders hesitant to risk losing customers by
raising prices. The once precious sum of Rp 5,000 bought only few
vegetables for a family meal.

Scenarios

Health experts took the opportunity to state that breast milk
was far better for babies than costly milk formula -- but many
mothers, including those working outside the home, could no
longer switch back to breast-feeding.

Demographers outlined best and worst scenarios -- with
increasing death rates in the worst scenario, partly caused by
sheer poverty, and increased births if people neglected costly
contraceptives.

Maswar Noerdin, first assistant to the state minister of
population, said the worst-case scenario of the prolonged
economic crisis and riots in the next five years could bring down
participation in family planning programs from 55 percent in 1998
to 47.5 percent by 2003.

The widely quoted "lost generation" of unborn infants is most
feared. The few reports of vitamin A deficiency and marasmic
kwashiorkor -- the damage of the body's internal organs caused by
a diet of high carbohydrate and low protein -- probably were just
the tip of the iceberg, experts said.

Now invisible, nutritional deficiency among pregnant women
would lead to permanent damage among infants. Also, many families
are likely to lack the means to seek medical help for their
children.

The alarm was raised by findings of research conducted up to
June this year by Helen Keller International. In Central Java,
reoccurrences of vitamin A deficiency, indicated by night
blindness among children and women, was found. An increase of
anemia was also reported.

"Indonesia was declared free of night blindness in 1994 by the
WHO (World Health Organization)," Soekirman, a researcher at the
National Institute of Sciences said. "So it means that we have to
fight this all over again."

One measure taken to address the problem was the start of a Rp
1.37 trillion supplementary food program for pregnant women and
children under five in 140 regencies.

The general picture of a country in desperate need of help
thwarted international renown achievements into mere nostalgia --
the award for self-sufficiency in rice, the reduction of people
living in absolute poverty, elimination of vitamin A deficiency.

Among the sick, kidney patients faced much higher costs in
their dialysis treatment, the cost of which reached Rp 282,000
per treatment compared to the previous Rp 130,000 in one hospital
in Lampung.

Working children

The plight of millions of working children was also brought to
the public's attention. President B.J. Habibie pledged that
children should, at least, no longer work on the streets, amid
reports of increasing street children and their younger ages.

Habibie wanted to set up boarding homes for street children,
but the program has yet to pick up from the hard earned lessons
of several non-governmental organizations: that providing halfway
homes as an optional place of shelter was a more agreeable option
to children who had grown accustomed to the freedom of the
streets.

Minister of Education and Culture Juwono Sudarsono had
estimated an additional 3.5 million dropouts from elementary to
high school level, to the average of three million a year.

About six million children failed to reregister at school in
July because their parents could not afford the tuition fees.

Scholarships were provided and campaigns to keep children in
school continued vigorously to prevent students dropping out.

In August, the President disclosed that the government had
allocated Rp 1.5 trillion to help millions of school children and
500,000 university students in the 1998/1999 fiscal year.

Habibie also noted that only 54 percent of the country's 40
million children (aged between seven and 15) were now in the
country's nine-year compulsory education system, compared to
72.26 percent two years ago.

Riots

The crisis contributed to short tempers and a sense that
opened shops meant free goods for all. Regardless of speculation
that the May riots were organized, many witnessed, for instance,
the carefree, even happy faces of the young and old, men and
women who hauled toys and other goods from stores into narrow
alleys.

The May riots, where the crisis was blamed for the mass
looting in which scores were raped and killed in burning stores,
turned out to be only the beginning of more unrest which
continued as this went to press.

The International Labor Organization estimated a 6.7 million
loss of jobs by the middle of the year and many more were
expected to join the ranks of the unemployed.

Idle construction workers could not even return to their
villages as there was barely enough to eat there.

There was much less hope in the rural areas where harvests had
failed due to the drought.

Work in foreign countries became the best resort, but those in
despair went by illegal means, only to be repatriated empty-
handed.

The Central Bureau of Statistics predicted in July that 48
percent of the population of 202 million, or 95.8 million people,
would be living below the poverty line by the end of this year.

By August inflation was running at 60 percent.

The effort to provide subsidize rice at Rp 1,000 per kilogram
resulted in rampant profiteering by some officials because of the
wide gap between subsidized rice and that of the market price --
and this was one of the factors blamed for the short tempers
among the poor.

In Pontianak, West Kalimantan, not enough rice arrived, which
led to the rampaging of warehouses believed to hold rice,
followed by riots and burning of stores in September.

In Blora, Central Java, more riots broke out over scarce
fertilizer in December, and owners were forced to sell them at
cheaper prices.

Was there any way that the suffering could have been lessened?

Political and economic analysts have named various causes,
from the lack of a sense of crisis to the sheer magnitude of the
population, of which many were poor even before the crisis.

A report from the International Labor Organization (ILO)
raises the question of whether the social safety net funds could
have been spread wider to enable more people to get food for
work.

In September, Minister of Manpower Fahmi Idris said he could
not address the high unemployment, while the labor intensive
program, managed under funds of Rp 3.1 trillion, was aimed to
absorb only 1.8 million people.

The ILO report titled The Asian Financial Crisis, the
challenge for social policy notes that in the absence of any
social protection and strong unions in Indonesia, which might
have provided much needed funds, a large part of the safety net
program had to be allotted for more urgent basic needs and
services rather than for modest wages for work.

Numerous labor strikes have raised claims that workers were
arbitrarily dismissed and without compensation.

But a debate on social protection and unions may be too late
anyway; the government only ratified the International Convention
on the Freedom of Association this year, freeing workers of the
dreaded "communist" labeling of every aspiring activist.

If there was one small benefit to come out of the crisis, it
may be the signs of solidarity displayed by establishments and
individuals. Scores have resorted to charity organizations, and
trustful parties to distribute contributions have become most
sought after.

Authorities have repeated reminders that the safety net funds
are no free ride as some may have thought. Much of the money is
to be returned, albeit with low interest in well over 10 years,
and will add to the national debt burdened on the next
generation.