Minister Of Social Affairs: Communities In Hard-to-Reach Areas Receive Three Months Direct Cash Social Assistance

Minister of Social Affairs. Juliari Batubara provides assistance to people in need amidst the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: Ministry of Social Affairs)

JAKARTA - Minister of Social Affairs (Mensos) Juliari Batubara said that people in hard-to-reach areas will receive cash assistance from the government at the same time for three months. It was said that Juliari had received President Joko Widodo's approval during a closed meeting.

"We have the President's approval. We want to report at the same time, about 400 thousand heads of families in remote areas of cash social assistance will be distributed in three stages at once," he said in a teleconference broadcast on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) YouTube account, Friday May.

Meanwhile, once in each stage the value is IDR 600 thousand. Thus, people in hard-to-reach areas will immediately receive cash social assistance of Rp1.8 million.

Juliari said logistical constraints were the reason why the cash assistance was given directly. "Sometimes we have to cross a boat in the interior of Kalimantan village. So that President Jokowi's approval is very helpful for us and PT Pos Indonesia as a distributor," he said.

"So that our brothers who live in remote areas do not need to come to the same place again to get their rights," added the PDI-P politician.

In front of the KPK chairman, Firli Bahuri, Juliari admitted the difficulties in providing this cash assistance, especially for recipients outside the Jabodetabek area.

In the midst of this COVID-19 crisis, the Ministry of Social Affairs has only been able to complete the first phase of providing cash social assistance. The reason is that providing this assistance is considered more difficult because it has to coordinate with hundreds of regions in Indonesia.

"This is a bit more complicated regarding the Sabang to Merauke areas minus Jabodetabek and we also have to coordinate with 500 regencies and cities. So it is not as easy as the implementation of basic food social assistance," he said.

On the other hand, Juliari said, the first and second phase of the basic food assistance in the Jabodetabek area has been completed 100 percent. Furthermore, the third stage is currently running 80 percent and will prepare to enter the next stage.

He explained that during the three months this program was running, there were six stages of distribution. Juliari said, from the six stages, the beneficiaries will receive four basic food packages and two times social assistance for Bulog rice totaling 25 kilograms.

"The index is still Rp. 600 thousand per month. So four times the food packages and twice in the form of rice with the same family target," he said, explaining that 1.9 million beneficiary families will receive this assistance, 1.3 million of them are heads of families. are in DKI Jakarta and the rest are in the Bodetabek area.

KPK launched an application for social assistance observers

In this teleconference, the KPK released the launch of an application called Jaga Bansos to look at the distribution of social assistance in the midst of the COVID-19 event to make it more targeted.

This application can be downloaded via the Appstore for iOS users and Playstore for Android platform users. According to Firli, this application is a collaboration with related ministries and agencies.

"Today we launch one of the applications built by the KPK, namely Jaga Bansos," said Firli.

He said, the results of KPK monitoring at least 8,978,580 heads of families who received social assistance with the most 10 provinces being Central Java, West Java, East Java, Banten, South Sulawesi, Lampung, East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, West Sumatra, and Aceh.

So that with the launch of this application, it is hoped that all social assistance can be right on target and benefit the people.

"We both want to ensure social assistance is right on target, effective, and there are no deviations," he concluded.