Data On Social Assistance Recipients Is Not Clear, Hidayat Nur Wahid Asks The Government To Cancel The Increase In BBM Prices

Member of the Indonesian House of Representatives as well as Deputy Chair of the MPR-RI from the PKS faction, Hidayat Nur Wahid. (Photo: Doc. Antara/IST)

JAKARTA - Member of the Indonesian House of Representatives as well as Deputy Chairperson of the MPR-RI from the PKS faction, Hidayat Nur Wahid, rejected the government's decision to increase the price of fuel oil (BBM) for Pertalite and Solar subsidies. He considered that the transfer of fuel subsidies into Direct Cash Assistance (BLT) was potentially inaccurate because the existing data was not clear.

He calculated that there were 1.85 million families who received social assistance whose data was not clear and vulnerable.

President Jokowi himself, who once guaranteed that there would be no increase in fuel prices until the end of the year, admitted that the social assistance instead of the fuel subsidy would not be completely on target. If so and in the era of the world oil price is falling, the Malaysian government should also lower the price of fuel, so guarantees should not increase the price of fuel that is fulfilled, at the same time seriously improve the data entitled to receive regular social assistance because it has always been a finding from the BPK," he said in an official statement, Monday, September 5.

He continued, the inaccuracy of the target recipients of social assistance due to inaccuracies is increasingly evident from the explanation of the Minister of Social Affairs Tri Rismaharini.

In a press conference on Saturday, September 3, the Minister of Social Affairs stated that there was data on 18,486,756 beneficiary families (KPM) who were ready to channel, while the remaining 313,244 were still in the process of cleaning or cleaning data.

Both data, if the total is only 18.8 million KPM, is much lower than the total recipients who are entitled and have been announced by President Jokowi, which is 20.65 million KPM.

So, he continued, there are more than 1.85 million data whose status is unclear and the accuracy of the target, which has the potential to return to being BPK's findings, and is ineffective as a solution to the increase in subsidized fuel prices.

The data and allocation of the remaining 1.85 million KPM, where did the Minister of Social Affairs take it from? Moreover, this kind of oddity has never been discussed, let alone approved by Commission VIII DPR-RI. This is dangerous and can be a KPK finding, if suddenly it is entered in the stealth data or the data that is fabricated, only for the sake of government imaging, which seems to care about people who are having difficulty with the increase in fuel prices, but in essence, it is even more difficult for the people. We don't want to repeat the case of the Minister of Social Affairs who was arrested by the KPK because of the social assistance corruption," he said.

HNW said, in addition to 1.85 million KPM data whose source is not clear, 18.8 million data stated to be ready for distribution and are being cleaned are sourced from data on regular program recipients, namely BPNT and PKH.

Meanwhile, the data for the two programs are consistently problematic. The latest, for example, in June 2022, the Supreme Audit Agency revealed that the distribution errors in these programs resulted in state losses of up to Rp. 6.9 trillion.

The Minister of Social Affairs' claim that 18.8 million are ready to be distributed also deserves accuracy. The reason is that data like this has always been found to be irregularities, ranging from the mention of people who have died but are still in the data, the data is not listed on DTKS, NIK is invalid, KPM is already inactive but is still given, and there are many double recipients," he continued.

For this reason, he urged the Government to immediately correct by not increasing the price of fuel even though it had already been announced.

"The government should first discuss it with the DPR, which mostly rejects the increase in fuel prices, listening to the screams of the people which are increasingly difficult if the price of fuel continues to be increased, digesting input from experts on how to prevent the burden on the state budget by not adding to the people's distress," he concluded.

For example, by delaying projects that are not prioritized and are not a celebration of the people as many as IKN, KCJB, and infrastructure projects, as well as prioritizing refinery construction so that Indonesia no longer exports crude oil and imports back from Singapore. Thus, there will be the availability of ready-to-use oil in Indonesia.

"In order to survive our state budget, the Indonesian people are also safe due to their inability to increase the price of subsidized fuel," said HNW asserted.