Yogie announces anti-poverty program plan on target

JAKARTA (JP): The government's anti-poverty program launched last April has achieved its intended target despite some aberrations, Minister of Home Affairs Moch. Yogie S.M. says.

Yogie briefed President Soeharto yesterday about the implementation of the presidential aid program for backward villages, known by the Indonesian term Inpres Desa Tertinggal.

Minister of National Development Planning Ginandjar Kartasasmita and Soegito, the chief of the Central Bureau of Statistics, were present at the briefing.

Under the program, the government sends packages of Rp 20 million funds to 20,633 villages considered as backward. The fund is intended to be used as capital to help the poor help themselves out of their misery.

"Many of them have succeeded in using the funds," Yogie told reporters, after meeting with the head of state at the Merdeka Palace. "There have been some aberrations but overall there are many more successes than aberrations."

He said more than 16,000 villages have already disbursed the funds. The villagers in these pockets of poverty have formed groups, which will manage the revolving fund with supervision by volunteers provided by the government. There are now 90,547 such groups across the country with nearly 2.8 million families enlisted as members.

The program, which now involves 14 million people, was launched with the intention of improving the welfare of 25 million Indonesians, whose economic conditions classify them as still living under the poverty line.

Yogie was prepared with some examples.

One villager in Sukoharjo was loaned Rp 800,000, which he used to buy goats. He has since sold the goats for Rp 1.2 million, which means he earned Rp 400,000 in only four months.

A Tangerang man, who used to work making clogs, borrowed from the fund to start his own business. Now he employs 10 people and is doing a brisk business.

Yogie said the funds keep revolving as the first borrowers start paying their loans back with some interest.

He said the government is taking steps to rectify the aberrations. "We never tire in reminding the governors, vice governors, regents, mayors and district chiefs to make sure that the funds reach the intended recipients and that they are used effectively."

The government has warned it will take firm action against officials who help themselves to any of the funds earmarked for the poor.

Earlier reports suggested that one district chief has already lost his job for embezzling from the funds.

Even the funds needed to cover volunteers' expenses are allocated under a separate budget, so that the entire Rp 20 million in poverty-elimination packets should reach the recipient groups intact.

In a related development, Ginandjar said Inpres Desa Tertinggal is not the only program being launched by the government to help poor people.

He said the government, with the help of foreign aid donors, is helping to develop infrastructure through the construction of roads and other facilities in the poorest villages.

The initiative for these projects comes from the villagers themselves. The Public Works Ministry is helping them with the technical preparations.

The National Development Planning Board (Bappenas), which Ginandjar chairs, has already secured pledges from donor countries for these projects, including Japan, which is providing $200 million; the World Bank with $100 million, and the Asian Development Bank with another $50 million. The government is matching the amounts with rupiah funds. (emb)