The needy wait for safety net program assistance

By Christiani S.A. Tumelap

JAKARTA (JP): The eyes of Husin, a grandfather of six, shone bright as he talked about his tire repair business, a business he has been in for the last 20 years.

"It may not be a big business, but it has never failed to help me keep my status as the family's breadwinner," he said while fixing a flat bicycle tire in his modest working space, a five- meter-square makeshift wooden room off Jl. U in Tegal Parang, Mampang Prapatan district, South Jakarta.

The tire repair business earns him as little as Rp 2,000 a day to over Rp 15,000 (about US$2) a day. These figures were doubled and sometimes tripled before the economic crisis hit in mid-1997, he said.

"Alhamdulillah (thank God) that I got Rp 200,000 from the social safety net fund to buy some spare parts and also several things needed by my family," he said.

Husin is one of hundreds of people in Tegal Parang subdistrict who enjoyed the benefit of the government's social safety net program, which was launched last year to help the poor and unemployed cope with the country's worst ever economic crisis.

The Mampang district received a total of Rp 455.78 million in cheap loans provided by the safety net program and channeled through the village resilience board (LKMD), a community-based organization created and managed by local leaders.

Each eligible recipient in the district received between Rp 250,000 and Rp 1 million. They have to repay the interest free loan within 10 months. The repaid money is then distributed to other recipients in the district.

Unlike Husin, however, many other poor residents in the capital have not benefited from the safety net program.

In a 16-square-meter rented room in a slum area in the Menteng Dalam subdistrict, which is just behind President Habibie's residential compound in the opulent Patra Kuningan area of South Jakarta, 40-year-old Suparmi longs for a chance to receive a loan from the social safety net fund.

"I would really be grateful if I could get some money to use as capital to support my business of selling nasi rames (rice accompanied by a mixture of dishes)," she said.

Suparmi earns between Rp 10,000 and Rp 30,000 a day to support her husband and eight children.

"I wonder why other neighborhoods have enjoyed the safety net program and we have not. We are actually living very close to the President here," she said.

Controversies

The implementation of the social safety net program has been criticized by many for failing to reach its intended targets because of a lack of comprehensive preparation, detailed distribution procedures and an adequate assessment system.

Several local non-governmental organizations concluded in a study that the program did not have transparent procedures, a clear vision or clearly targeted recipients. According to the NGOs, this led to the misuse of funds by LKMDs and government officials and the uneven distribution of funds.

The government allocated Rp 17.9 trillion to finance the safety net program in the 1998/1999 fiscal year which ended in March, but a large portion of this money was misused.

The National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) admitted recently that some of the funds went to the wrong people. The agency said assigning different ministries to handle the distribution of the funds was a mistake because some of the ministries used the funds to finance their own projects rather than channeling the money to the needy.

Bappenas also said some of the safety net money was used by certain political parties to gain votes in the June general election. Government officials in some areas of East Java, Central Java, North Sumatra, North Jakarta and West Java told recipients that the funds were from Golkar Party.

The agency also said that at least Rp 8 trillion of the Rp 17.9 trillion allocated for the safety net program failed to reach its intended targets; the unemployed and people without enough food.

The World Bank delayed the March disbursement of a $600 million loan for the safety net program after the government failed to provide a reliable system to monitor the disbursement of the funds.

The bank later agreed to distribute the delayed $600 million loan on May 18, just weeks before the general election.

Analysts said the safety net program was prone to red tape and corruption due to a lack of coordination and monitoring.

The secretary of the subdistrict office in Beji, Depok, West Java, Sakriyanto, agreed with the critics, saying even he was not really involved in the distribution of the funds to residents in his subdistrict.

"I think government officials, including us in subdistrict offices, should ideally know about the details of the safety net program so that we will be able to give proper information to the public," he said.

An activist of a local NGO, Food for Poor People, Widya Rachman, said the uneven distribution and misuse of the safety net funds would not have happened had the government socialized its program from the beginning.

"Lack of information on the purpose, targets and mechanisms of the safety net program has been exploited by some people to take advantage of the program, while people who really need the money can do nothing about it," he said.

He highlighted his organization's findings on the implementation of the program in some areas of Greater Jakarta, pointing out that the funds were distributed through different methods by different LKMDs.

"Some require the recipients to pay a certain amount of loan interest, others don't. Not to mention that some recipients got the funds easier because they knew LKMD officials personally," Widya said.

He also questioned the way some of the funds received by a district were taken by the LKMD or other relevant government agencies.

A chairman of a LKMD in the Tegal Parang district said his district received Rp 455,780,000 to be used to finance the development of infrastructure and small and medium-scale entrepreneurs.

He said his LKMD was allowed by government regulations to use 5 percent of the funds to pay for overhead.

In addition, the LKMD also gave the head of the community unit an operational fee of Rp 2.5 million and the facilitator Rp 1.25 million, he said.

"As far as I am concerned, these fees are legal. But I don't know how other LKMDs do their jobs, really," he said.

He said those who wanted to receive funds from the safety net program registered with their respective neighborhood leaders, who advised the LKMD on which were the appropriate recipients.