Jakarta – The distribution of direct cash aid (BLT) for the poor as of Monday has reached fewer than 15 percent of municipalities and regencies across the archipelago.
In charge of the nationwide distribution, national postal service provider PT Pos Indonesia reported Monday the cash aid had only reached 65 out of 440 municipalities and regencies, or about 1.5 million of the targeted 19.1 million households since the start of the program in May 25.
"Some Rp 473 billion of BLT has been distributed in 65 regencies," head of the financial services department at PT Pos, Ida Bagus Nurmantara, said in Jakarta during a press conference.
The penetration of BLT is far below the target of reaching all regencies by the middle of this month. On June 9, Social Services Minister Bahctiar Chamsyah was quoted by Antara newswire as saying the BLT had reached 138 regencies.
PT Pos also reported the average absorption rate in the 65 regencies reached 69 percent, with Jakarta seeing over 94 percent, followed by Riau Islands with 46.83 percent and South Kalimantan with 36.27 percent.
In terms of provinces, 30 provinces have distributed some part of the BLT while the rest – Central Kalimantan, Maluku and West Papua – requesting a postponement as they complete the verification of eligible recipients.
This verification, Nurmantara said, is the most difficult part of the BLT distribution process. The current distribution list was drafted by the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) in 2005. The agency is updating the list but it is not expected to be finished soon.
Freddy Tulung, the ministry of information and communication's director general for communications and information dissemination, said the BPS has verified the data in some 1,000 sub-districts but there are more than 4,000 sub-districts in Indonesia. It is hoped the new list will provide a clearer map of the poverty problem in the country.
In the meantime, some 44,499 distributed BLT cards have been canceled. Funding to around 11,000 of the cards has been blocked, while the remainder are waiting to be transferred to other family members or to other families in the area.
"Some targeted recipients were taken off the list because they have died, moved, are no longer entitled to the program, or held multiple cards," Freddy said.
Before the new BPS list was ready, he said, the government implemented discussions at the village level where sub-district leaders could propose new recipients for undistributed funds.
The remoteness of some areas, according to Nurmantara, is another reason for the slow distribution.
"When the areas do not have a post office, we have to go to them. Yesterday, Pos 11 Jayapura used a helicopter to reach the most remote area, Kerong, to introduce the BLT to the residents and verify the list. Later they will fly out again to distribute the money. Each trip costs Rp 150 million," he said.
Pos Indonesia is using cross-funding from their allocated budget to pay for the trips.
"We get Rp 5,000 from the government for every distribution we complete. Our costs in cities are quite low, so we use the remaining to subsidize distribution in more difficult terrain," he said.
Freddy said his department had not received any reports of the misallocation of funds. (mri)