The Distribution Of Social Assistance Is Messy, Emil Dardak Admits That The Recipient Data Is Invalid

JAKARTA - Deputy Governor of East Java Emil Dardak admitted that the distribution of social assistance (bansos) for people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic still had many problems. One of the reasons is because the population data in the territory is no longer accurate or valid.

Furthermore, Emil said, due to invalid data, it had an impact on the overlapping data on social assistance recipients in the regions. This has contributed to the ineffective distribution of social assistance.

Emil said, there were 3.8 million families out of 5.2 million recipients of social assistance from the Ministry of Social Affairs, whose assistance was stuck at IDR 200 thousand per month. Meanwhile, the 1.4 million from the Ministry of Social Affairs earned IDR 600 thousand per month for three months, IDR 300 thousand until December.

"It turns out that a lot of NIK (Identity Number) is entered into the data of social assistance recipients, so we check that the NIK is not in the database," he said, in a webinar entitled 'Digital Transformation is not an Option but a Must' which was conducted virtually, Wednesday, 12 August.

Emil suspected that this invalid data was due to a human error or an error when entering data. He said this then raised the question, to whom did the assistance go to.

"Because maybe in the past when it was written or typed it was wrong. Now this becomes a question, then who the assistance actually reaches," he said.

According to Emil, due to invalid data on aid recipients, those who are eligible to receive social assistance cannot, and vice versa, those who are less worthy actually get assistance from recipients.

To improve this, Emil assessed that digital transformation in the population system is important, so that the data that is owned becomes easier and better controlled from one agency to another.

"If, for example, we can identify this family, we can know whether in one KK there is overlapping assistance. This is a lot. Because assistance is certainly not unlimited, we prioritize families who have never received it. Now this cannot be done when the NIK invalid, "he said.