Editorial: Tuning to emergency

Mon, 06/02/2008 10:20 AM  |  Opinion

Many people said it was unthinkable that the government would implement a direct cash aid program similar to the one in 2005.

An uproar was heard the minute the plan was announced, as some people recalled bitter memories of the week and months following the fuel price increase of 126 percent in 2005.

The same amount of the present cash aid of Rp 100,000 (about US$11) per month to each family, to last seven months, does not mean much even to the poor, critics said. Reports said the sum was spent within a few days.

Remember how people condemned and even assaulted village officials seen to be responsible for the 2005 aid distribution, others said. A coalition of subdistrict heads insisted they should be involved in the verification of data this time around.

The voices of resentment are so loud that it takes a while to notice that many do not distinguish between the program and its implementation, and that in many cases it is the implementation which conjures up those sad memories of 2005.

Critics on and off the streets repeated the earlier arguments: that it is far better for the government to create jobs instead of turn citizens into beggars; that it is much better to recoup state losses from corruption and bad debt than to sacrifice the poor; that we should overhaul the entire approach to the economy and make it more tuned to people's needs than just be sucked right away into globalization.

We would agree, except for the obvious fact that millions need help right now. In Makassar, South Sulawesi, an elderly woman expressed joy when she received a coupon worth Rp 300,000 for three months of cash aid. Unable to continue her work of peeling onions at the local market because of rheumatism and a breathing disorder, Hanisa, 73, said she hadn't gone to the market to work and shop for the last three months, relying on family and neighbors to survive.

In a rented hut in Yogyakarta, another woman said that with the cash aid she could now pay the necessary transportation of at least Rp 35,000 per trip to the hospital for the free medical services she was entitled to. Ngatiyah, 66, said she could now sleep easier after receiving medication for her post-stroke ailments.

Researchers focusing on the 2005 cash aid program had already identified one of several flaws, the centralized system leading to frustrating red tape and inaccurate data. Data that is verified by local officials is one urgent improvement measure for further programs, they said, echoing similar criticism of the aid. This is more necessary now, three years after the nationwide census for the first cash aid.

Despite the haste following the stalled planning to reduce the fuel subsidy there is still time for better coordination on the ground. Reaching 19.1 million families is not easy, but we expect there will be some improvement in implementation this time around.

There also needs to be wider understanding of the emergency measure -- that cash aid is only one among several options for emergency relief and that not everyone is healthy enough to join, for instance, a cash-for-work program.

In the long run, improving the economy remains our homework. Apart from overcoming inflation, better jobs with better pay is the answer for millions of Indonesians.

A presidential advisor said Saturday that social security for the jobless should be introduced as in the West. But our figures for the jobless hide the millions of working people who slip under the poverty line once they or their family members are hampered in any way, as in the cases of Hanisa and Ngatiyah.

Critics are right to remind President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that cash aid must remain what it is -- an emergency measure, not to be extended, and of course not to be abused as a ticket to the 2009 elections.

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