T

he 2015 budget dispute is expected to delay the disbursement of Jakarta Smart Card (KJP) funding for hundreds of thousands of the city'€™s underprivileged students.

The administration in 2012 introduced the KJP cards for elementary, junior high and senior high school students. In the program, eligible elementary school students receive Rp 180,000 (US$13.85) per month from the city administration, junior high school students Rp 210,000, while senior high school and vocational high school students get Rp 240,000.

The money may be used by parents to pay school tuition and purchase items that support the students'€™ education, such as textbooks, stationery and uniforms. The Education Agency'€™s head of operational and personal education fund control and planning, Susie Nurhayati, said the disbursement of KJP funding would be delayed this year. She said 480,150 students were to receive funding from the city administration this year.

'€œThere will, of course, be a slight delay due to the budget dispute. It is a long process for the money to travel from the city administration to the Education Agency to the hundreds of thousands of students,'€ Susie said over the phone on Wednesday.

KJP funds were previously disbursed every three months. Starting this year, the city planned to disburse the funds every month. Susie said the agency would first need to collect the data of all recipients and prepare a gubernatorial decree in order to disburse the funds. She said that in order to speed up the disbursement, the agency had recorded the names and data of all the students.

'€œWe have also communicated with the regional secretary [Saefullah] and BPKAD [Financial and Asset Management Board] head [Heru Budi Hartono] in order to speed up the disbursement letters,'€ she said.

Susie went on to say that this year the Education Agency had significantly increased KJP funding from Rp 1.4 trillion in 2014 to Rp 3 trillion. She said, however, that she could not guarantee that the KJP funding would stay at Rp 3 trillion, as the city administration and the Home Ministry was set to evaluate spending in the 2015 budget, which is Rp 67.4 trillion, and scrap several allocations to adjust to the 2014 spending, which was Rp 63 trillion.

Separately, Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama said he would attempt to speed up KJP funding disbursement once the 2015 budget was disbursed in April. He also asserted that the city would not cut spending for KJP.

'€œWe will try to disburse KJP funding as quickly as possible once the budget is approved by the Home Ministry because it is one of our priorities and we understand that the students need it,'€ Ahok announced at City Hall in Central Jakarta on Wednesday.

Ahok went on to say that the city administration would change the KJP disbursement system. Previously, KJP funds had to be cashed at a branch of city-owned lender Bank DKI.

'€œStarting this year, the funds will be transferred directly to the students'€™ bank accounts; thus the students must have a Bank DKI account in order to receive the funds. This way we can monitor the money, plus the students and parents will no longer have to line up at the bank,'€ Ahok said.

Besides the KJP, many city programs have also been affected by the budget dispute. Contract workers at integrated health service posts (posyandu), for example, have yet to receive payments and residents have to pay part of the costs of posyandu treatment. Posyandu also serve baby food to little patients.