"The government will continue to distribute aid for victims of the Seroja disaster. There is money from the central government, so it will continue to be distributed," he said in Kupang on Monday.
He added that his statement was issued in response to information spreading among the public who questioned the funding for the handling of the April 2021's Seroja Tropical Cyclone disaster in East Nusa Tenggara.
The National Disaster Mitigation Agency allocated Rp849.3 billion in assistance for East Nusa Tenggara to renovate tens of thousands of houses damaged by the disaster.
Nae Soi said the value of the aid distributed was in accordance with the criteria for house damage that had been stipulated beforehand. The categories range from mild, moderate, and heavy damage.
He noted that in the process of distributing aid, there were also difficult problems in practice, such as some people intentionally manipulating the condition of the damage they were reporting.
"Reports from the region stated that there were people whose houses were lightly damaged but were (intentionally) damaged more, so they could get more aid. For example, there are houses that have one or two tin layers open, more are ripped open to sell the illusion of being heavily damaged. This is a problem in practice," he said.
On the other hand, there was also the possibility that regional government officials did not come to the scene to thoroughly examine the damage of residents' houses.
Nae Soi said that the government already had data on aid recipients based on actual conditions, to ensure that the allocated assistance was delivered to the correct people.
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Translator: Aloysius L, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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