Reply To Anies' Criticism About Social Assistance Is Not A Solution, Repnas: Help Reduce The Impact Of Life's Difficulties

Illustration. Social assistance for food packages from the center was prepared by workers in Tangerang City, Banten, Saturday 9 May 2020. (Between Photo-Fauzan)

JAKARTA - The National Young Entrepreneurs Volunteer (Repnas) said it was still important for a helping hand from the government to overcome economic inequality in the country. This is in response to the statement from the presidential candidate number 1, Anies Baswedan regarding social assistance (bansos) is not a solution to the problem of poverty.

The head of the Repnas Anggawira said that social assistance is still very much needed in the joints of people in need, especially those affected in difficult situations.

"Bansos can provide financial assistance or basic necessities to those who need it, help reduce the impact of life difficulties," said Anggawira in Jakarta, who was confiscated on Wednesday.

Anggawira said that social assistance in developed countries not only deals with crisis problems due to pandemics or natural disasters, but also includes unemployment allowances, health assistance, housing subsidies, and educational assistance programs.

In developed countries, Anggawira continued, social assistance programs are usually more structured and involve a strong social security system. Even the social assistance system abroad is supported by high taxation to finance welfare policies and maintain social justice.

"Progressive countries tend to have social welfare policies that provide financial support and welfare services to people in need. Currently, Indonesia has led to improvements in the social assistance distribution system by improving infrastructure and institutions to distribute social assistance so that it is right on target to people in need," he said.

Previously, Anies highlighted that poverty is an economic and non-social problem. He said that if the country's trade system is good, social assistance is deemed unnecessary because the workers' income is sufficient.

Social assistance itself has proven to be able to rise from the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, the central government provided a lot of assistance such as cash assistance, village direct cash assistance (BLT), 450 watts of free electricity subsidies, 50 percent of electricity discounts for 900 watt users.

Then, the government launched productive social assistance for 13 million MSMEs. The government then provided assistance through pre-employment cards for 10 employees to be laid off through the Pre-Employment Card program. Then emergency working capital in the form of cash of IDR 2.4 million to 15.7 million workers outside the Pre-Employment program, as well as assistance for workers of IDR 600 thousand from worker data at BPJS Ketenagakerjaan to the provision of the 13th salary.

The report, entitled "Mitigating Credit" released in 2021 shows that cash assistance policies significantly reduce the number of people who may fall into poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report explains the impact of social assistance policies in preventing 31 out of 42 million people from falling into poverty since March 2020.