Coordinating Minister Cak Imin: Government Forms Task Force For Auditing Vulnerable Islamic Boarding School Buildings In Indonesia

Coordinating Minister for Community Empowerment Muhaimin Iskandar alias Cak Imin (right). Photo: Theresia Agatha/VOI

Coordinating Minister for Community Empowerment Muhaimin Iskandar alias Cak Imin revealed that the government will form a Task Force for the Development of Islamic Boarding Schools. The task force will conduct data collection to audit Islamic boarding schools in the country.

"We will form a Islamic Boarding School Development Task Force starting from the most vulnerable. Starting with an audit by the PU Minister's troops," said Cak Imin after a meeting with the Minister of Public Works (PU) Dody Hanggodo at the PU Ministry office, Jakarta, Tuesday, October 7.

The formation of the task force was triggered by the collapse of the Al Khoziny Islamic Boarding School building in Sidoarjo, East Java.

Cak Imin said the Task Force would collect data from local governments as well as public reports.

"Our audit looked at data from local governments, data from the community. In fact, we opened a hotline," he said.

In addition, Cak Imin asked tens of thousands of Islamic boarding schools that do not yet have Building Licensing (PBG) to immediately take care of it.

He also asked pesantren that do not yet have PBG and are still in the construction stage to temporarily stop its construction until it has a PBG permit.

"While fixing it, the Minister of Public Works guarantees all types of free licensing," he explained.

Pada kesempatan sama, Menteri PU Dody Hanggodo menuturkan, proses audit akan diprioritaskan ke daerah yang terdapat banyak ponpes, seperti Jawa Timur, Jawa Tengah hingga Sumatera Selatan.

Masyarakat juga diminta ikut aktif memberikan informasi jika menemukan hal tidak sesuai.

"Sementara kami sampling dulu, yang tidak masuk sampling mungkin nanti akan dibantu lewat hotline. Jadi kami kerja paralel, mana yang bisa kami kerjakan hari ini kami kerjakan, nanti info dari masyarakat tetap kami perlukan," tuturnya.

On the same occasion, Minister of Public Works, Dody Hanggodo, said that the audit process would be prioritized to areas with many Islamic boarding schools, such as East Java, Central Java to South Sumatra.

The public is also asked to actively participate in providing information if they find things that are not appropriate.

"While we are sampling first, those who do not enter sampling may later be assisted through a hotline. So we are working in parallel, which one we can do today, we will continue to do information from the public," he said.