Social disparity 'blurs development achievement'
JAKARTA (JP): Debates on the socio-economic disparity problem should focus on solutions or they will eclipse the economic performance, Minister of National Development Planning Ginandjar Kartasasmita said yesterday.
Speaking before a seminar held by the Moslem Students Association, Ginandjar said an excessive expose of social disparities could easily arouse tempers, eventually damaging national interests.
"Shop burnings, labor strikes and other forms of violence inspired by social envy do nothing but sacrifice the poor and lower class consumers who do not have many choices in this life," Ginandjar said.
He said he has always encouraged open discussions in a bid to find solutions to socio-economic disparities. "Everybody is free to talk but they must have adequate facts, data and understanding about the issue," he said.
Ginandjar said that as a scholar he doubted the social gap has been widening in this country despite more than 25 years of economic development.
"There is no data available to support that. The only fact is the numbers of poor people have declined," he said.
President Soeharto said, while delivering the state budget plan for 1997/1998 fiscal year to the House of Representatives early this month, that the number of Indonesians living below the poverty line dropped by four million in 1996 from almost 26 million in 1993.
"I agree there are many things suggested in the 1945 Constitution that have yet to materialize, but only because development always takes time," Ginandjar said.
He insisted a pragmatic way of coping with socio-economic disparity was giving top priority to a sustainable poverty alleviation program.
"The program, however, has been overshadowed by other disparity issues and looks irrelevant, although it receives international applause," Ginandjar said.
Launched in April 1994, the poverty alleviation program, called Presidential Aid for Least-Developed Villages, provides each poor village Rp 20 million (US$8,390) in financial aid.
It got a boost last December when Soeharto issued a decree obliging firms and individuals with annual after-tax earnings of more than Rp 100 million ($42,000) to contribute an extra 2 percent of their incomes to the campaign against poverty.
Democracy
Development programs, which Ginandjar characterized as a cultural transformation into a new society, suggest a political development which will lead to democracy.
Ginandjar said it was unnecessary to change the existing political system to reach this goal.
He said a political system based on the state ideology Pancasila served public interest the most, with people being free to express their aspirations and given more access to decision making process.
"But we need the skills to manage such an openness in order to prevent social disintegration and all forms of abuse," he said.
Abdurrahman Wahid, chairman of the 30-million strong Moslem organization Nahdlatul Ulama, Nurcholish Madjid and Mochtar Naim also spoke at the seminar.
The three speakers agreed cultural uniformity restricts people's initiative.
Nurcholish said Indonesians embarked on their new path as a free nation 51 years ago with poor educational backgrounds and too many established local cultures.
"That's why we remain in the process of building a national culture which compromises the various local cultures," he said.
The three speakers agreed that economic development had caused a domination of one culture (Javanese) over the others. But Nurcholish praised the Javanese people's allegiance to their leaders and for playing a key role in the success the development program. (amd)