The amount is transferred to 308 district/municipalities."Jakarta (ANTARA News) - In Indonesia, based on data at the Ministry of Home Affairs, there were 81,309 villages in 2013, consisting of 72,944 rural villages and 8,309 urban villages.
Of these villages, some 32 thousand were still categorized as least developed. For this purpose, the government has set aside a village fund to help advance village development.
Till December 16, for example, the government has channeled Rp19.764 trillion as village funds to 308 districts/municipalities, or about 95 percent of the disbursement target of Rp20.76 trillion this year.
"The Ministry of Finance has till December 16 transferred 95 percent, or Rp19.76 trillion, of the funds from the state treasury account to the regional treasure account," Budiarso Teguh, the director general for financial balance affairs of the Ministry of Finance, said in Jakarta Thursday (December 17).
Of the Rp4.15 trillion ceiling to be distributed in the third phase of the village fund disbursement, some Rp3.15 trillion had been absorbed, Budiarso explained. "The amount is transferred to 308 district/municipalities. The number of the district/municipality recipients was down from the previous disbursement phase totaling 434 districts," he said.
Of the absorbed fund in the third phase which totaled Rp4.15 trillion, about Rp1 trillion has not yet been transferred because some villages have yet to submit their reports on the fund absorption in the first and second stages.
Filing a report on the absorption of funds is one of the requirements a village needs to do before it could receive the funds of the following stage. This requirement is based on a joint decree by three ministers on village funds.
"The finance ministry has said that the reports should have been made and we should have received them on Friday, (December 18) in the latest information so that the next funds could be disbursed," Budiarso noted.
Based on information collected by Antara, the amount of fund disbursement in the first phase reached 100 percent with a ceiling of Rp8.3 trillion for 434 districts/municipal cities.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Transmigration, Village and Disadvantaged Region Development (PDTT) has asked for revision of the regulation on the mechanism of village fund disbursement.
"A number of regulations on that matter need revision, particularly with regard to the mechanism of allocation and distribution of funds from the district to village levels as regulated in Government Regulation (PP) No. 22 of 2015 on Village Funds from the State Budget," Ahmad Erani Yustika, the director general for Development and Empowerment of Village People of the PPMD ministry, said Thursday.
The revision of the regulation must be carried out, mainly on Article 11, letter b, so that allocation would be calculated by taking into the population and the poverty rate, regional width and geographical difficulties of villages in each of district/municipal city, he said.
"We are also still constrained by the finance minister's Decree No. 93 of 2015 on the procedures of allocation, distribution, use, monitoring and evaluation of the village funds," the director general stated.
The formula on the allocation as regulated in Article II of Government Regulation No. 22/2015 on the Village Funds from the State Budget has not yet taken into account the fairness aspect because some 90 percent of the funds are equally allocated to each village while only 10 percent are distributed based on the demography and geography criteria.
The proportional allocation which is based on the number of population, poverty rate, width of areas and geographical difficulties is only 10 percent. "This formula is practically less proportional. Villages which have more difficult problems receive the same amount of funds as those allocated to relatively more advanced and developed villages," Ahmad Erani said.
Therefore, he said, the village fund allocation formula for 2016 should be made with a ratio of 60 percent based on the proportional criteria and 40 percent on the equal allocation basis.
"The village funds set at the state budget amount to Rp47 trillion in 2016 should be allocated based on a new formula. This will accelerate village development and empower village people," he asserted.
The World Bank said the mechanism of the village fund allocation applied so far needs improvement. The distribution system applied currently is not fair and equitable and could cause imbalances of income among people in villages.
Imbalances are caused by the fact that 90 percent of the village funds are distributed equally for each of the villages while only 10 percent are allocated based on demography and geography criteria, according to World Bank economist for Indonesia Ndiame Diop in Jakarta Tuesday (December 14).
"Such an allocation formula has created imbalances, in which a highly populated village receives almost the same amount of village funds as a less populated village. For the big village, a small amount of village funds will not be enough for them to develop," Ndiame Diop said during the launch of the WB Indonesia Economic Quarterly report Tuesday.
The main objective of the village funds is to develop public infrastructure that will have a multiplying impact on the peoples economy in villages, Minister for National Development Planning Sofyan Djalil said in his response Wednesday (December 16).
It was not correct to say that the village funds were designed as direct incentives to be handed out to the poor and prone-to-poverty people in the regions, he said.
"The village funds are not provided directly to the poor people in villages. The funds are used to build public infrastructure facilities to increase the absorption capacity of the labor-intensive sector in villages," the minister said.
Most of the funds were used to develop public infrastructure which involved and empowered the people in rural areas, he said.
The government could increase the productivity and improve the welfare of village people by empowering and involving them in the construction of public facilities, the minister said.
Thus, the economic benefit accruing through infrastructure development could be multiplied. "So, what is needed is to improve the quality of guidance for the villagers," he added.
(T.A014/INE/KR-BSR/F001)
Reporter: Andi Abdussalam
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2015
