Bogor City Social Service Agency Cancels BLT For 2,800 Prospective Recipients, How Is That Possible?

Residents receive 3 kg of rice from the Bogor City Police after undergoing vaccination at the Baranangsiang Police Post. (AMONG)

BOGOR - Bogor City Social Service Office, West Java, canceled direct cash assistance (BLT) for 2,800 local residents whose funds were sourced from the regional revenue and expenditure budget (APBD).

Head of the Division for the Poor and Social Security for the Bogor City Social Service, Okto Muhamad Ikhsan, said the cancellation would start in 2021, because some of the recipients had been registered as candidates for social assistance from the Ministry of Social Affairs (Kemensos).

"So we have submitted the application through the system, but it turns out that there are 1,500 citizen data that have become data for prospective recipients at the Ministry of Social Affairs, so it's better to leave them as recipients at the Ministry of Social Affairs," he said in Bogor City, Antara, Thursday, January 6.

Okto explained that the plan to provide BLT to residents from the savings from the recess activities of members of the Bogor City Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) to people who were hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 was unsustainable.

In addition, BLT is aimed at residents who have not received any assistance from the government, such as the Family Hope Program (PKH) or Non-cash Food Assistance (BPNT) from the Ministry of Social Affairs.

This means, said Okto, that the residents' data may not overlap or that PKH and BPNT recipients cannot be BLT recipients, so the Social Service Office needs to match the data and communicate with the Ministry of Social Affairs.

From the data that has been inputted into the information system of the Bogor City Social Service and connected to the Ministry of Social Affairs at the end of 2021, there are 1,500 citizen data that have been approved as candidates for social assistance recipients. Meanwhile, the remaining 1,300 residents' data has become the stock of the Ministry of Social Affairs if there is an additional social assistance quota for the City of Bogor.

"So, that's the reason, we canceled the BLT, if it was from the Ministry of Social Affairs, the assistance could be sustainable. The DPRD's austerity budget has finally gone wrong," he said.

Meanwhile, Chairman of Commission IV of the Bogor City DPRD, Said Muhammad Mohan, previously explained that the council members had succeeded in saving the recess budget of Rp. 13 billion from the APBD which was handed back to the Bogor City Government.

Some of these numbers have been closed together to help residents who during the COVID-19 pandemic have never received any assistance at all.

A total of 2,800 citizen data submitted through the Social Application Data Application (Solid) of the Bogor City Social Service received assistance of Rp. 300 thousand per month twice.

"So, from Rp13 billion, not all of them have been proposed for social assistance, around Rp1.6 billion may be for social assistance from the meeting at the end of 2021. Of course, after being returned, it becomes the authority of the City Government as well," he said.