The DPR's Criticism Of Assistance For People Affected By COVID-19

Illustrations (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - Member of the House of Representatives of the PKS Faction, Syahrul Aidi, criticized the government for not being ready to face the corona virus or COVID-19 pandemic, so that there is a high overlap between one ministry and another. This can be seen from the complicated handling of distributing direct cash assistance to residents affected by COVID-19.

"Many rules and policies have been taken without synchronization with all stakeholders. They often change and cause clashes and confuse the regions in their work," said Syahrul in his written statement, Wednesday, April 29.

He explained that there were 4 stakeholders who were closely related to handling assistance for residents affected by COVID-19, namely the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Villages and PDTT, Ministry of Social Affairs. These four institutions are considered to be out of sync in issuing policies.

The effect, he continued, is that social conflict appears at the bottom layer. This can be indicated by the various rejections made by village heads to RT / RW heads who do not have the courage to enforce regulations from the central government.

"There are those who are afraid that the public will be disappointed, there are also those who are afraid of being hit by problems after COVID-19. In the end, they just keep quiet and wait. As a result, handling COVID-19 is getting more difficult and victims are falling," he added.

He asked the government to evaluate the handling of assistance for residents affected by COVID-19. He said, there must be a comprehensive synchronization of all policies issued and not overlapping and making it difficult for regional governments.

"Simplify the bureaucratic flow and find a precise way to break the chain of COVID-19," he said.

He asked for direct cash assistance (BLT) from Kemendes PDTT using the latest data from RT / RW, not from the data itself.

"Today, everyone is affected by COVID-19, so that many people are demoted. For example, the workers who were affected by layoffs were previously middle class and then plunged into a lower class," he said.

Some time ago, on social media Twitter the video of the East Bolaang Mongondow (Boltim) Regent Sehan Salim Landjar expressed his anger regarding the mechanism for distributing aid from the center to the poor in villages that were complicated.

PDTT Village Minister Abdul Halim Iskandar said he had communicated with the Regent of Boltim. He said, since the video was busy on social media, his party immediately tried to communicate with Sehan to find out what the problem was.

Abdul Halim admitted that he had cleared up the misunderstanding regarding Sehan's complaint about the Ministry's PDTT policies which were considered fluctuating. He emphasized that his party had never changed policy.

"We have said that we have never changed the policy, what we have is adding. Indeed, initially, we did not change the Village Minister's regulation. We only issued a circular because it regulates two things," he said, Monday, April 27.

In addition, Abdul Halim explained, two things in the PDTT Ministry circular letter, namely, the matter of village cash labor and about the prevention and handling of COVID-19. According to him, these two points do not make changes to the Permendes because they have been regulated and accommodated in Permendes No.11 of 2019.

According to Abdul Halim, this circular letter is in accordance with President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) 's direction that there is a new policy, namely that village funds can also be used to distribute BLT. Because of this, it has not been accommodated in the Permendes, so his party made amendments by issuing Ministerial Regulation Number 6 of 2020 concerning Permendes Number 11 of 2019.

Abdul Halim emphasized that what changed was only the regulations, not the policies. This is because a policy must have a clear legal basis for its implementation.

"Only that, (there is) a change in the legal umbrella. But nothing has changed in policy," he said.