What safety net?

The National Police's announcement before the New Year that the country's crime rate increased by 10 percent in 1998 was not as disturbing as learning the main cause for the upward trend: With poverty rapidly rising, more and more people are resorting to crime as a matter of survival. These past few weeks we have heard reports of highway holdups, targeting trucks carrying food supplies destined for urban centers. Some warehouses storing food stocks have been looted.

And there are reports of people raiding plantations and shrimp ponds to help themselves to the harvest. Many neighborhoods and streets throughout the country have also become unsafe in recent months.

Many of these robbers, looters and thieves did not hesitate to use violence. In some cases, security forces were helplessly outnumbered, or simply helpless. In others, they were even the target of mob attacks.

Deplorable as they may be, these were acts of desperation reflecting the increasing impoverishment experienced as a result of the economic crisis. These crimes, and the impotence of the security forces to stop them, raise the specter of anarchy, of a breakdown in law and order or, worse still, of the social revolution that several experts are already warning about. We are certainly not far off from Aristotle's assertion in Politics: "Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime".

For the security forces chiefs, the rising crime rate has strengthened their argument for expanding the police force, and hence their controversial proposal for establishing a civilian militia. But a more thorough examination of the condition we are in tells us that no police force, however great, and armed with a cache of sophisticated weapons can prevent the hungry from stealing when it is their only survival option. We will instead end up fighting violence with violence; when that happens, the spoken about social revolution becomes reality.

The increasing tendency for some to resort to crime to keep themselves fed raises questions about the effectiveness, or rather the sorry lack thereof, of the government's heralded social safety net programs. The government has allocated nearly Rp 18 trillion (US$2.4 billion) for programs precisely aimed at cushioning the poor from the impact of the economic recession. Last year, the World Bank also led an international consortium to pledge Indonesia $14 billion in fresh assistance, mostly destined for such programs.

The National Development Planning Board has admitted that only 30 percent of funds allocated for the programs for the current 1998/99 fiscal year ending on March 31 have been channeled so far. Fears the money could be siphoned off by unscrupulous government officials have slowed down the disbursement. Given the notoriously sticky fingers of the bureaucracy, these are pathetic yet valid concerns. The temptation to embezzle must be even greater among corrupt officials today when times are hard.

The government has instead relied on grassroots non- governmental organizations to help disburse most of the money directly to the needy. This, too, means lengthy procedures and administrative steps, including in selecting and supervising the organizations involved, hence the delay.

As the crime figures attest, the provision of the social safety net programs is the one and only viable solution to stem their continued rise. We know what the problem is, and also that there is no shortage of money to finance the solution, the programs. Lacking, however, is a credible and capable administration to push the programs through. It is up to the government to get its act together, and quickly, to put the social safety nets where they are desperately needed.