TNP2K: Elpiji Subsidy Has No Impact On Poverty Reduction

JAKARTA - Executive Secretary of the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), Suprayoga Hadi revealed, LPG subsidies do not contribute to poverty alleviation.

"Actually, compared to the poverty assistance program that has been allocated, it turns out that LPG subsidies and fuel are relatively not on target," he said in an Indef discussion quoted on Thursday, March 9.

Not only that, said Hadi, the provision of social assistance (bansos) disbursed by the government such as the Family Hope Program (PKH), the Indonesia Smart Program (PIP), and Non-Cash Food Assistance (BPNT) tends to have an impact on reducing inequality.

"Business productive assistance (BPUM) also tends to be right on target and has an impact on reducing inequality," he said.

Furthermore, Hadi added, a number of challenges in the LPG subsidy policy for fishermen include subsidies that are still given to commodities so that there are still price disparities.

"Then the constraints on the monitoring system need to be strengthened. The conversion of kerosene to LPG in 2007 initially went well but due to the ineffective supervision of subsidized LPG users swelled," he said.

According to him, it is necessary to decide the purpose of providing subsidies for fishermen, whether for fishermen's productivity or as an instrument for improving welfare.

"If the goal is to increase productivity, it is given to fishermen regardless of the welfare level. If the goal is as an instrument of welfare for poor fishermen, they can use available integrated data such as the Targeting for the Acceleration of the Elimination of Extreme Poverty (P3KE)," explained Hadi.

Still Hadi said, the last challenge is that P3KE data has a variable type of fishing work but has no variable ownership of the ship.

"Varialbel is there but there is no ship ownership. At least in terms of work status there is so we can identify the number of fishermen," he concluded.