T

he granting of Rural Development Strategic Program (Respek) funds worth Rp 100 million (US$10,000) to each village in Papua would encourage complacency as Papuans would rely on handouts without earning a living, seminar participants said.

"I believe the Respek funds would be a crutch for Papuans and it could become a ticking time bomb for unempowered Papuans," Spey Bidana, a Pegunungan Bintang regency representative in the first Papua International Biodiversity Convention, said Monday during the seminar.

Bidana said he was concerned about distributing the funds to the villages without having first educated the villagers on how to allocate it beneficially.

"The government has to set up special training programs for the people before providing them with the funds. Without training, the recipients would not be in a position to best make use of the funds," he said.

"It could potentially create a *money for nothing' mind-set among the villagers," he added.

The move, said Bidana, would not empower Papuans but it could lead to their not being accountable for their own development, thus creating an attitude of complacency, because they could still receive financial assistance without the need for work.

The allocation of the Respek funds would also create resentment among rural residents, because the funds are allocated irrespective of demographics such as village population, he added.

"A village with 30 people and one with 100 people would receive the same amount.

This would be unfair and there should be a difference based on demographics," Josias Serontouw, a traditional community representative, told the seminar.

Seminar participants were also informed that the lack of coordination among NGOs in Papua had led to overlapping programs being carried out by both the NGOs and Respek.

Agus Sumule, an aide to Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu, said Respek was aimed at empowering Papuans in rural areas.

The funds would be used to finance local initiatives to address key problems that have been identified as hampering local development. The program has, however, run into many obstacles.

"We need to be aware that a large difference exists between Respek, as we had conceptualized it, and the mixed results we're getting in the implementation process.

Many points of improvement exist, one of which is the allocation of funds in 2010 with respect to village population," he said.

Papua Respek coordinator Wem Ngamelubun said a total of Rp 166 billion from this year's provincial budget, or 70 percent of all Respek funds, had been distributed to rural areas.

Most of the programs being funded by Respek were construction projects including bridges, roads and clean water facilities, Wem said.