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Ministry requires public forum for social aid recipient nomination
Under the new policy, village and subdistrict administrations will hold public forums to nominate potential social aid recipients once a month to update the data and prevent misdirected social assistance disbursement, the Social Affairs Ministry announced.
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Social aid recipients receive money on May 10, 2024, under the government-funded social assistance Family Hope Program (PKH), at the Bandung central post office in West Java. (Antara/Raisan Al Farisi)
T
he nomination of potential social aid recipients will now be done through public forums at the village and subdistrict levels, the Social Affairs Ministry announced, in an effort to ensure well-targeted aid distribution.
Social Affairs Minister Tri “Risma” Rismaharini said village and subdistrict heads were required to involve the public in nominating aid recipients and development planning forums in order to help prevent misdirected aid disbursement.
“We have received reports that those who were proposed [to receive aid] were close aides to the officials,” the minister said during a press briefing on Wednesday. “Even the officials in charge of the nomination also reportedly signed up.”
A 2021 social affairs ministerial regulation stipulates village and subdistrict officials’ authority to nominate potential social aid recipients. The results are then verified and validated by the social affairs agencies at the city or regency level.
The ministerial regulation is derived from Law No. 13/2011 on the Poor and Underprivileged, which requires officials to propose social aid recipients through public forums in the village or subdistrict.
In Indonesia, regional administrations initiate annual public forums to hear the public’s insight about what programs or focuses should be put in the following year’s development plan, including social aid disbursement.
However, the Indonesian Ombudsman revealed in an investigation earlier this year indications of maladministration where village officials did not nominate potential social aid recipients in such public forums. Instead, they made decisions unilaterally.
