Social Assistance For Compensation For Subsidized Fuel Increases Must Be Distributed For 4 Months

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The government is ready to distribute social assistance (bansos) if the price of fuel oil (BBM) has to be increased.

The social assistance program is to mitigate the negative impact on the economy due to the increase in energy prices.

In response to this, the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia (FEB UI), Teguh Dartanto said, the government needed to immediately provide social assistance and cash assistance after raising fuel prices.

Assistance must be provided over a period of at least several months.

"Social assistance or cash assistance can be provided for a period of 3-4 months after the fuel price adjustment is made," said Teguh, in Jakarta, quoted on Friday, August 26.

In addition, Teguh assessed that the step of providing social assistance to the community could take advantage of the mechanism that had been put in place during the handling of COVID-19. According to him, the social assistance recipient data has been updated by the Ministry of Social Affairs.

"Regarding fuel compensation, the government can use the mechanism or data used during COVID-19 which has been updated by the Ministry of Social Affairs," he said.

However, Teguh also proposed a mechanism for submitting new social assistance recipients that were not included in the Ministry of Social data. According to him, the concept of the submission mechanism could adopt the Pre-Employment Card registration mechanism. Moreover, previously, the Pre-Employment Card was considered successful and received a positive response from the international community.

"As for the social assistance application submission via the website, which we call the on-demand application, the concept is similar to the Pre-Employment Card registration mechanism," he said.

The researcher who focuses on poverty analysis, said that the on demand application mechanism will be able to accommodate and bridge the problems of people affected by the increase in fuel prices that have not been included in the government's social assistance recipient data.

"This on-demand application model provides space for affected people to get social assistance due to fuel price adjustments but has not yet been included in the list of beneficiaries. Of course there must be verification and validation from related parties," he explained.

Social assistance data must be up to date and valid

Meanwhile, Public Policy Observer Agus Pambagio said that recipient data must be up to date, and IoT (Internet of Things)-based supervision must also be implemented. So, Agus continued, it can be easily found if there is a fraud.

Currently, said Agus, the Ministry of Social Affairs has the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS) and the Social Welfare Check application.

The Ministry of Social Affairs also has a strategy that is to support the transparency of social assistance recipients so that data on recipients of assistance is displayed in every Kelurahan.

According to Agus, the government may use any application, as long as it has been updated.

"Whatever the application is, it doesn't matter, as long as the data base at the Ministry of Social Affairs is valid. Last year it was cleaned. And the important thing is the supervision, including maintaining the big data system," concluded Agus.

Previously, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said the government was ready to distribute and strengthen social assistance if subsidized fuel prices had to be raised.

The social assistance program is to mitigate the negative impact on the economy due to the increase in energy prices.

"Yes, of course we will make social protection thicker, bigger. We already have many systems that have been implemented during the COVID-19 Handling Committee and PEN," said Airlangga.