House of Representatives and the government are set to collaborate in monitoring the distribution of social assistance program to groups affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, said House Speaker Dr. (H.C.) Puan Maharani. She said that the House would present its findings on the previous aid distribution programs to the government for future improvement of the upcoming programs.

“As part of its oversight role, the House has monitored the non-cash social aid distribution by government over the past three months. We were looking at how it was distributed, who were the eligible beneficiaries, whether people really benefited from the program, and how useful they were,” said Maharani during a non-cash social aid distribution event in Jayanti village, Cikande sub-district, Tangerang regency, on Tuesday (23/6/2020), where Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Cultural Affairs Muhadjir Effendy and Social Affairs Minister Juliari P. Batubara were also in attendance.

The aid was distributed to 1,178 people, each of whom received Rp 600,000. Maharani, an Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician, underlined that the program should be prioritized to poor people so that they can sustain their lives during the pandemic.

“The COVID-19 economic recovery budget has been allocated until December, and we have just passed the first three-month mark of the aid distribution program. We will also evaluate the upcoming program in the next three months," Maharani said while highlighting the distribution mechanism and schedule of the program. She argued that specific dates should be set for the aid distribution to be organized at intervals in each region.

"This is one of the takeaways that I will share with the Government. Certainly, we don’t want people queueing up, from what I’ve heard, up to 3 hours to receive the cash transfer," Maharani said. She believed that the social assistance program should be scheduled on specific dates so people only come when it’s their turn to receive the aid. Setting up several dates will also help avoid large gatherings of people during the aid distribution, and therefore minimizing risk of COVID-19 transmission.

The statement was made by the former Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Cultural Affairs during a dialogue with one of the social assistance beneficiaries in Cikande Village. "Specific dates are very important so that people come only on the given dates. I asked one of the beneficiaries the date she usually receives the social assistance but she couldn’t remember it, which means that there wasn’t any specific date given," the Central Java legislator explained. Furthermore, another problem that was highlighted by Maharani was the issue of revalidating data of social assistance beneficiaries.

She hoped data improvement and synchronization would take place soon. “We do understand if there are still some problems because the COVID-19 outbreak does not happen exclusively in Indonesia. Other countries all around the world are also facing the same issue. Many decisions need to be made in a quick fashion. Not only to maintain public health, but also to recover the economy,” she explained. Maharani then continued by adding that the findings will be forwarded to the government, so they can evaluate this program immediately and, in the next distribution programs, there will be some improvements. She further expressed her hope that the July-September 2020 social aid distributions would be better.

While distributing the aids, Maharani, the first woman Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives, had a chat with three of the beneficiaries. They expressed the shared concern over an increase in the price of some essential supplies such as eggs and cooking spices. Maharani responded by saying that she would looked into the matter and that she took it as an input for her.

Maharani also made some time to visit the house of one of the local residents, Muhamad Bisri, approximately 500 meters from the aid distribution location. The middle-aged man lives with his family in an old house of woven-bamboo. After handing the IDR 600 thousand of cash transfer money, Maharani talked to Bisri and his wife. She reminded them to be mindful about spending the money. (ann/sf)