Viktor Laiskodat Claims To Be Embarrassed By Poverty In NTT Only Down 2 Percent

East Nusa Tenggara Provincial Governor Viktor Bungtilu Laiskodat (ANTARA/Benny Lihang)

East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) Governor Viktor Bungtilu Laiskodat admitted that he was embarrassed because the poverty rate in the province was only able to fall by two percent from more than one million poor people in the area he leads.

"The reduction in the poverty rate in NTT only reaching two percent is not proud, it should feel ashamed because the budget support and various programs carried out by the government for poverty alleviation in NTT are very large. However, the result of poverty falling by two percent is very embarrassing, it should have fallen by 10 percent. That should be proud," he said at the coordination meeting for handling extreme poverty in NTT, which was attended by regents and regional governments in Kupang, reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, August 15.

According to him, it is time for the government to impose sanctions on the poor who do not have efforts to live prosperously with their own efforts, but only wait for social assistance from the government.

"If you only wait for social assistance from the government and there is no effort to turn yourself into a prosperous life, then people like that must have a law," said Viktor Laiskodat.

Viktor said that repeated assistance can be given to residents who are categorized as poor, but if the recipient is in good health and is considered economically capable but receiving assistance repeatedly, they must be fined.

According to him, there needs to be an evacuation of the provision of social assistance that costs a lot of money for residents who are categorized as poor and it turns out that economic conditions are capable.

"We hope that the central government will make regulations to provide fines to recipients of social assistance who repeatedly receive assistance, but have efforts to try to get out of poverty independently without having to wait for government social assistance," he said while saying he would convey this directly to Vice President Ma'ruf Ami.

The Governor of NTT explained that if the recipients of the social assistance for economic empowerment do not change economically, the residents should be punished because the provision of assistance aims to make residents free from poverty.

"Social assistance is unacceptable over and over again and makes people not have the ability to do business, change for the better," he said.