Queuing for cash

Although many government officials, especially those from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) along with Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab, remain confident that the government has been thorough in gathering and processing data as well as distributing assistance to the country's poorest people, wide-ranging media reports are indicating otherwise.

The government, especially the BPS, has been drawing up a demographic map of people living under the poverty line throughout the country since January, and promised that a comprehensive mapping would be complete as soon as the government launched its financial assistance for the poor.

However, when the government started distribution of the assistance early this month, there remained very large numbers of deserving people who did not any. Their neighborhood unit chiefs had registered their names with the visiting BPS employees, but the government excluded them from the recipients list.

On the other hand, there were people who received the assistance money even though, according to their neighbors, they had a better standard of living than many others who did not receive it.

To help poor people endure the impact of the drastically reduced fuel subsidy, the government has allocated Rp 4.65 trillion (US$450 million) to be distributed to 15.5 million poor families. The recipients are entitled to receive Rp 300,000 every three months for a certain period as part of the government's short-term policy to reduce the impact of fuel price rises.

The government had to drastically raise the fuel prices on Oct. 1 following escalating oil prices on the world market. Rationally, the government had to take such a decision, with the ballooning fuel subsidy increasingly threatening the economic future of the nation.

Although the amount of the fuel compensation assistance is relatively small, it can at least help the most needy families to cope with the more severe economic conditions. With the government increasing the price of kerosene to Rp 2,000 from the original Rp 700, it is correct to view the cash assistance as a subsidy for kerosene consumers, many of whom are poor people.

Of course we fully support the allocation of money for the poor, no matter how small it is, as it helps them at least temporarily. They deserve protection because the impact of the removal of the fuel subsidy is simply too heavy to bear.

Apart from the cash fund, the government has also allocated Rp 6.27 trillion for education, Rp 3.87 trillion for health, and Rp 3.34 trillion to finance labor-intensive projects in the least- developed villages. The funds for education and health are meant to prevent even more students dropping out for economic reasons, and to enable sick people to get cheap or free medical treatment in state-run hospitals or health centers.

This is not the first time that the government has provided funds to help the poor. The government has more than enough experience, and although from time to time there have been changes in requirements, the basic data and principles are still there.

When the economic crisis hit in 1997, the government with the financial backing from international donors, including the World Bank, provided funds for labor intensive projects, cheap rice and other subsidies for least-developed villages. Following rampant corruption, the World Bank was forced to stop its funding for such projects.

It seems that the government -- i.e. state agencies that are responsible for providing data about numbers of poor people -- is still unable or unwilling to learn from previous mistakes.

There is fear that the subsidy for the education and health sectors, as well as funds for the labor-intensive projects, will be stolen by government officials and by those who are entrusted by the state to deliver the funds to schools and hospitals. If this fear is later proven to be true, it merely shows that our nation has not changed; we take every possible opportunity to engage in corruption.