Reducing Poverty The Problem Is Not In The Budget, Vice President: The Aid Must Be Right On Target

Vice President (Vice President) Ma'ruf Amin. (Photo: Setwapres)

JAKARTA - The number of poor people in Indonesia has touched 10 percent of the total population of more than 270 people. The government, through ministries/agencies, is also trying to make various poverty reduction programs, the amount of which is quite large, reaching more than 500 trillion rupiah.

However, these programs have not run optimally, because there are still data on extreme poor households that are not appropriate so that the recipients of aid are not on target.

"So, as I have said on various occasions, that in reducing extreme poverty, the budget is not the main issue. Our biggest challenge is how the aid must be right on target," said Vice President Ma'ruf Amin at the Maluku Provincial Governor's Office, Ambon, Maluku, Wednesday. October 13.

The Vice President further emphasized that there are data differences in determining the number of extreme poor people. This will affect the distribution of aid provision.

"In this regard, I request that data improvements continue to be made, so that for the implementation of programs from 2022 to 2024, we can use more up-to-date and accurate data on extreme poor households," the Vice President asked.

In the meeting which lasted more than 2 hours, the Vice President conveyed that this extreme poverty reduction program was a direct direction from President Joko Widodo. The President also requested that this program be completed by 2024.

According to data from BPS sourced from SUSENAS March 2020, the areas included in extreme poverty are 35 districts from 7 provinces in Indonesia, namely West Java, Central Java, East Java, Maluku, East Nusa Tenggara, Papua and West Papua.

Each province has 5 priority districts which are pockets of extreme poverty. The 5 priority districts in Maluku Province are Central Maluku, Southwest Maluku, Southeast Maluku, West Southeast Maluku, and Eastern Seram.

Regarding the target for reducing extreme poverty, which must be completed by 2024, 2 million extreme poor people must be eliminated by 2021. However, the Vice President realizes that this target is not an easy thing, because the time is less than 3 months.

"For this reason, in the last 3 months of 2021, we will add special efforts using existing programs, namely the Basic Food Program and BLT-Village," said the Vice President.

Meanwhile, responding to the Vice President's direction, the Minister of Home Affairs, Tito Karnavian, explained that related to data, data collection on extreme poor households was carried out using the by name by address method.

Meanwhile, regarding the various problems faced by priority areas in Maluku Province, Tito suggested two things. First, considering that Maluku is a province with a low fiscal capacity where most of the expenditure is spent on regional needs, budget support is needed from the center to help the regions make extreme poverty reduction programs.

Second, the condition of Maluku which is an archipelagic region so that access from one region to another is not conducive, infrastructure support is needed. This will facilitate logistics transportation between regions so as to increase population productivity.

"To support infrastructure in Maluku Province, we will coordinate with the Ministry of PUPR," said Tito.

For information, the total number of extreme poor people in Maluku reaches 97,747 people with a total of 22,110 extreme poor households. The number consists of Maluku Tenggara Barat District with an extreme poverty rate of 18.76 percent and a total population of 21,270 extreme poor people; Southeast Maluku Regency with an extreme poverty rate of 13.65 percent and a total population of 13,660 extreme poor people; Central Maluku Regency with an extreme poverty rate of 10.53 percent and an extreme poor population of 39,400 people; East Seram Regency with 12.73 percent extreme poverty rate and 14,750 extreme poor people; and Southwest Maluku Regency with an extreme poverty rate of 14.43 percent and a total population of 10,580 extreme poor people.