The Government Claims Distribution Of Social Assistance Has Reached 10 Million Recipients

Illustration of social assistance queue. (Angga Nugraha / VOI)

JAKARTA - The government through the Ministry of Social Affairs (Kemensos) said that it had distributed the Food Assistance Program (BPNT) to more than 10.4 million beneficiary families (KPM) until March 22, 2020.

The Ministry of Social Affairs' Director-General for the Management of the Poor Asep Sasa Purnama said the next stage of social assistance distribution is scheduled before the March period ends with an additional 7 million KPM.

"The total accumulated distribution will reach more than 17.4 million KPM including accelerated April payments", he said in an official statement, Tuesday, March 30.

He added that throughout March 2021, there were 11.7 million data from 509 districts/cities that had been repaired and matched.

"Data matching is able to improve program targeting accuracy and avoid distribution errors. Currently, the Ministry of Social Affairs also continues to increase the number of coverage while improving data quality", he said.

"We would like to thank the Ministry of Home Affairs and Pemprov and District/City Governments who are very supportive of efforts to accelerate data improvement so that the implementation of the Social Protection program in the future can be even better", continued Asep.

For information, the distribution of social assistance is part of the Cash Assistance Program launched by the government on January 4, 2021, which includes three types of programs, namely the Groceries / Non-Cash Food Assistance Program (BPNT) for 18.8 million KPM, the Family of Hope Program (PKH) for 10 million KPM, and cash social assistance (BST) for 10 million KPM.

The total social assistance funds budgeted by the government through the social protection scheme in the 2021 State Budget is IDR 157.4 trillion. This budget is included in the National Economic Recovery (PEN) budget, which this year is allocated IDR 699.4 trillion.

Meanwhile, the other PEN budget targets the health sector IDR 176.3 trillion, support for MSMEs, and cooperatives IDR 184.8 trillion, priority programs IDR 122.4 trillion, and incentives for the business world of IDR 58.4 trillion.

In the 2020 period, the social protection budget was recorded at IDR 134.1 trillion with a realized value of IDR 130 trillion.