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Government pledges firmer measures against illegal levies in social cash transfer
The government has pledged firmer measures against those responsible for illegal levies uncovered during the distribution of social cash transfers in several regions. Minister of Communication and Information Technology Johnny G.
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Firmer action: A woman shows money she has just received from the cash transfer program in South Jakarta recently. The government has pledged firmer actions to those who are deemed responsible over the illegal levies spotted during the cash transfer program disbursement. (Antara Photo)
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he government has pledged firmer measures against those responsible for illegal levies uncovered during the distribution of social cash transfers in several regions. Minister of Communication and Information Technology Johnny G. Plate encouraged anyone with knowledge of illegal activity to report it immediately to local law enforcers or could also file the report at the jaga.id application, which was initiated by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)
“The social cash transfer program is tailored to be distributed to the people for free. So, any illegal levies should be firmly dealt with,” Johnny said.
He insisted that recipients should be able to receive the entire portion of the cash aid and there should be no compromise about this. The people, he went on, deserved to be financially assisted to ease their financial burdens caused by the pandemic.
Johnny added that the government had deployed law enforcers to monitor the whole process so as to minimize any illegal activities that could emerge.
There have been reports from several regions about illegal levies during cash transfer distribution. Among them was one made by Dodi, a Cimanggis resident. Kompas.com reported that Dodi had told journalists that the head of the neighbourhood unit at his housing complex had asked him to donate Rp 400,000 from the social cash transfer that he had received, which was worth Rp 600,000 in total.
The neighbourhood unit head reasoned that the portion of the cash transfer would be distributed to other needy residents whose names were not registered as social cash transfer recipients. Dody refused to give his portion of the cash transfer as he deemed the cut to be far too much.
Reacting to his refusal, the neighbourhood unit head then threatened Dody that he would not provide any assistance in the future, especially regarding social aid programs. He even described Dodi as selfish.
Commenting on this, community unit head Nurdin, said it was not meant as an illegal levy. He confirmed that all cash transfer recipients had been asked to voluntarily donate part of their cash transfers for those whose names were not registered on the recipient list.
“The donation should be made voluntarily, without any coercion,” he said.
In his case, Nurdin went on, only 87 out of 185 people were registered as cash transfer recipients. Responding to this, he added, all relevant stakeholders had met and agreed that a portion of the cash transfers should be allocated for the other residents whose names were not on the list.
He suggested what had happened with Dodi was merely miscommunication.
“I’ll be settling the problem,” he said.
Johnny said another 5.9 million recipient families had been added to the social cash transfer recipient list, thus making a total of 15.9 million recipient families, at a cost of Rp 24.54 trillion. The cash transfer distribution is being made through PT Pos Indonesia.
