Banggar Chairman Suggests The Government To Be Careful About Social Assistance Ahead Of The 2024 General Election

Chairman of the Budget Agency (Banggar) DPR RI Said Abdullah. (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

Chairman of the DPR RI Budget Agency (Banggar) Said Abdullah advised the government to be careful regarding social assistance policies (bansos) in the situation ahead of the 2024 General Election.

According to Said Abdullah, every public policy product is part of a political interest, so the government needs to pay attention to political and operational aspects in developing social assistance policies.

"It is important for the government to explain to the people that the political interest in the development of social assistance is to answer the issue of the threat of a food crisis, increasing the vulnerability of poor households, and maintaining economic growth according to the 2023 State Budget target," Said said as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, December 4.

He recommended that the government do five things related to social assistance policies.

First, the government is advised to perfect the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS) under the authority of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

He argues that the improvement of DTKS to the village and sub-district levels must involve broad community participation.

Moreover, DTKS is the overall reference of all social assistance programs, based on the typology of the target groups of each program.

"Immediately complete the DTKS synchronization with the Socio-Economic Registration Data (Regsosek), so that the data unity becomes a refinement of DTKS," he said.

Second, simplifying the business process in each social assistance distribution program by relying on cashless, digitalize, and open data. This is done to reduce interaction between parties, maintain accountability, and public participation.

As for the rice assistance mobilized by Bulog to the village, he considered the need for supervision from many parties.

Third, ensure the packaging of the rice social assistance program is only a photo of the state symbol or other images that are not associated with political interpretations, because the implementation is ahead of the 2024 General Election.

The government needs to show its technocratic aspects, this program is solely aimed at the poor in facing an increase in food demand prices.

Fourth, cooperate with the MSME People's Business Credit (KUR) distribution bank to see business transaction patterns, so that the government has big data on MSMEs receiving KUR for their business tendency.

Another important thing, according to him, is to ensure that extreme poor household groups can advance to class, can have productive efforts so that their lives do not depend on government social assistance.

Finally, recipients of BLT El Nino are beneficiaries of the PKH program, so the government must be able to arrange so that BLT El Nino's distribution scheme can only be used to purchase non-rice food ingredients and their disbursement can support non-rice food needs.