'Smells Of Amis' Alleged Corruption Smells, The Pre-Employment Card Program Must Be Stopped

JAKARTA - The polemic of the Pre-Work Card program continues after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) issued its study. A number of parties assessed that this program should not need to be improved, but rather stopped. Moreover, the 'fishy smell' of the corruption scandal was detected in the program.

Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) Coordinator Adnan Topan Husodo said the Pre-Work Card program, which is one of the social safety net assistance in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, needs to be stopped immediately.

"We have to stop this program because the structural design is wrong, the goal is wrong, the intention is wrong. Therefore, we better stop this program," said Adnan in a discussion entitled 'Will the KPK Findings End in a Mega Scandal of 5.6 Trillion Pre-Employment Cards ? ' on the Prakerja.org YouTube account, Thursday, 26 June.

He said, instead of spending budget money on programs such as Pre-Work Cards, the budget should be converted into pure cash direct assistance (BLT).

This is because fresh money is considered more needed and can build social resilience in the midst of a crisis like this, rather than providing programs that cannot be directly felt by the community.

He said that if this Pre-Work Card program continues, the KPK should immediately enter into prosecution steps.

"Because the fishy smell is clear enough and there is no option for the KPK not to take legal action," he said.

Adnan assessed that if there was no prosecution process from the KPK that had conducted a study and found irregularities, it was not impossible that these kinds of projects would re-emerge.

"If the Pre-employment Card passes as a policy, new prey will emerge and this could eat up the budget actually allocated to deal with the impact of the pandemic," he said.

Prakerja.org initiator Andri Kusuma spoke up about the KPK study. For your information, Prakerja.org is a platform that provides workforce training similar to the government's Pre-Work Card program.

It's just that, Prakerja.org does not charge any fees for people who want to increase their abilities. The platform is self-sufficient because they criticize the social safety net program.

Returning to Andri, he said that Prakerja.org appreciated the KPK's study on the government's Pre-employment Card. It's just that he hopes that the KPK study can continue to the prosecution stage. Because, he considered that a number of criminal acts in the program had occurred.

"The mens rea is also very bright, in which the KPK stated in its study, the conflict of interest between digital platforms and training institutions and the five digital platforms that hold training and curation roles to advertise training in the same company," he said.

Another Prakerja.org initiator, Largo Andrianto also spoke up. He said, the budget of Rp. 5.6 trillion for the Pre-Work Card program was excessive.

According to the man who is involved in information technology, the budget is excessive because the government does not have the training content but only rents content from platforms that are government partners.

"I was a little surprised, it was a huge budget. Then what product. Instead of buying content, this is even giving vouchers to rent content," said Largo.

He assessed that, instead of preparing a budget of Rp. 5.6 trillion, the government actually had enough to prepare Rp. 50 billion to buy content from training institutions with experience.

"Imagine, the government has prepared Rp50 billion in luxury to buy content that is purchased in full and distributed free of charge to the public. It is much more effective. It doesn't need to be up to 100 times. Only Rp. 50 billion is luxurious. Surely many people want to create content. " he said.

Previously, the KPK had given seven points of recommendation to the government regarding the implementation of the Pre-Work Card program. This recommendation was given, after this anti-graft agency conducted a study and found a number of problems.

First, the KPK recommends that the targeted participants do not need to register online to become program participants but be contacted by the executive management. The reason is, in its study, this anti-graft agency found only a few workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic who had registered themselves into this program.

Second, the KPK suggested that the face recognition feature should not be used, but simply using the NIK.

Third, the KPK encourages the government to ask for a legal opinion from the Attorney General's Office regarding the collaboration of eight digital platforms in the Kartua Prakerja program whether it is included in the provision of government goods and services or not.

Fourth, the KPK emphasized that digital platforms must not have conflicts of interest with training providers.

Fifth, curation of training materials and online feasibility should involve competent parties in the training area and be written in the form of technical instructions.

Sixth, training materials identified as free training through the internet must be excluded from the list of training provided. The results of the KPK study showed that of the 327 samples of training provided, 89 percent were available for free on the internet.

Finally, the KPK asked that the implementation of online training must have a control mechanism so that it is not fictitious.