Vice Minister Supports KPK To Investigate Village Fund BLT Misappropriation

Illustration (Angga Nugraha / VOI)

JAKARTA - Deputy Minister of Villages for Disadvantaged Areas and Transmigration Budi Arie Setiadi supports the Corruption Eradication Commission to investigate allegations of misappropriation of social assistance in the midst of the COVID-19 disaster.

"We are ready to work together with the KPK to thoroughly investigate the social assistance case, especially BLT village funds," said Arie in a written statement, Saturday, May 30.

He said the findings of the alleged misappropriation of direct cash assistance (BLT) from village funds were obtained after making a visit before Eid in the Purwakarta area, West Java.

There are allegations that the cash assistance in the middle of the COVID-19 event was cut by village officials in the area so that the community only received IDR 50,000 or IDR 100,000 per month. In fact, each family should have received cash assistance of Rp. 600 thousand per month for three months or until June.

"We also emphasize that misappropriation of Village Fund BLT will be handled by law enforcement agencies. All BLT village funds must be audited for their use. Who is responsible for dealing with law enforcement agencies, "he said.

He then reminded village officials and the community to sit down together to reveal the data of the beneficiary families. In addition, the list of recipients of social assistance must be published in various ways, including posting it at the village office or in other places that are easily visible to residents.

Because, if this is not done, there is a chance that social assistance can be misused by village officials. If there are any complaints, the Ministry of Health PDTT has prepared a hotline and a complaint mechanism related to village fund BLT.

Since last April, Arie said, there have been 2,654 complaints reported and 23.4 people have complained about the problem of direct cash assistance.

The complaints, he continued, were in the form of aid that was not on target, was uneven, the disbursement had not been made, the cutting of village officials and general information about the direct cash assistance. This complaint, said Arie, would be synergized and then the Ministry of PDTT would cooperate with law enforcers to carry out investigations.

"We must protect the rights of the people who are taken away by irresponsible people," he said.

Previously, the KPK had also launched an application to monitor social assistance provided by the government during the COVID-19 period called Jaga Bansos. This application is expected to make the distribution of social assistance to help the lives of affected people be more targeted.

This application can be downloaded via the Appstore for iOS users and Playstore for Android platform users. According to KPK Chairman Firli Bahuri, this application is a collaboration between his institution and a number of ministries and other institutions.

"We hope that the public can trust in providing information through the Jaga Bansos feature, because this can be a channel for the public to play an active role in overseeing the allocation of social assistance and preventing the potential for corruption," said Firli when launching the Jaga Bansos feature during an online press conference through the KPK YouTube account. .

He also said that the public can use this new feature to report suspected deviations and misuse of social assistance. Not only that, Jaga Bansos also provides information about social assistance.

Later, the report that goes into the application will be received by the KPK, then forwarded to the relevant local government. The KPK passes information from the public through the Regional Coordination Unit (Korwil) for prevention. Furthermore, the KPK will monitor the follow-up on the resolution of these public reports and complaints.