Regarding Social Assistance Impact Of Increased Fuel Prices, Bogor Social Service Waits For Technical Information From The Center

Illustration. A man crossing the river carrying the President's social assistance in the interior of the Meratus Mountains, Datar Ajab Village, South Kalimantan in January 2021. (Antara-Bayu Pratama)

BOGOR - The Social Service (Dinsos) of Bogor City, West Java (West Java) is waiting for technical information on social assistance (bansos) from the Ministry of Social Affairs (Kemensos) related to the plan to increase fuel prices (BBM).

"We don't know yet which data sources are needed by the Ministry of Social Affairs. If DTKS (Social Welfare Integrated Data) has been inputted and when there is a change, it is immediately updated. There is not much update of DTKS data in Bogor City. The non-DTKS depends, such as BLT (Central Cash Assistance) affected by COVID-19 for example," said Head of the Bogor City Poor and Social Security Division Okto Muhamad Ikhsan in Bogor, West Java (Jabar), Wednesday, August 31.

While waiting for information on the distribution of aid, the Bogor City Government is ready to confirm the data on beneficiaries, both the parent data containing DTKS and non-DTKS.

He stated that the readiness of the local Social Service to carry out the required data collection in the plan to distribute social assistance was the impact of the increase in fuel prices.

Minister of Social Affairs Tri Rismaharini has submitted BLT funds worth a total of Rp12.4 trillion which will be given to 20.65 million community groups, as an additional social cushion for the transfer of fuel subsidies, which can be used to buy basic necessities.

The public will receive assistance of IDR 150 thousand four times, but the Ministry of Social Affairs will distribute it in the amount of IDR 300 thousand twice, starting in September 2022, through PT Pos Indonesia to accelerate. PT Pos Indonesia has an obligation to deliver the aid to people's homes by reporting proof of selfies of officers and recipients.

In addition to the BLT, based on an Antara report, the Ministry of Finance previously announced that the second was wage subsidy assistance to 16 million workers with a maximum salary of IDR 3.5 million per month, amounting to IDR 600 thousand which was paid once with a budget of IDR 9.6 trillion.

Furthermore, third, the assistance paid by the regional government uses two percent of the general transfer funds, namely DAU (General Allocation Fund) and DBH (Result Sharing Fund), IDR 2.17 trillion to assist the transportation sector, such as public transportation, motorcycle taxis, and even fishermen and additional social protection.

Based on data from 2021, said Okto, the Bogor City Social Service noted that the number of recipients of non-DTKS assistance or communities affected by certain economic situations, in this case the Cash Social Assistance (BST) program at that time reached 81,980 families.

BST is a program from the Ministry of Social Affairs for poor families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic at that time. Each recipient's family gets Rp600 thousand. The distribution of BST is carried out every two months as much as Rp600,000 gradually through the Post Office, for January-August 2021.

According to data from the Social Service, most of the BST recipients at that time were layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic and people with a weak economy.

He said that the people who were included in the category of recipients of assistance from DTKS 2022 were approximately the same as in 2021. In the PKH (Family Hope Program) program in Bogor City 2021, there were 30,199 families and 60,793 BPNT recipients.

Based on these data, he explained, the group of people receiving various aids according to the central government's analysis of the needs of residents in each region affected by certain economic situations.

"So if what the community needs are what the criteria are like to get help, we are ready to follow the directions. Data collection is ready to be done," he said.