"The Minister of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform (Menpan RB), Abdullah Azwar Anas, said that the budget was used for travel expenses and comparative studies. It cut a big portion of the utilization of the poverty alleviation budget. I think it made sense, and we must use the budget right on target," he stated at the Yogyakarta Presidential Palace, Saturday.
Earlier, Minister Anas noted that the poverty alleviation budget, which reached Rp500 trillion, was spent on meetings and comparative studies at hotels.
"There are two ways to tackle poverty, one is social protection to help the beneficiaries to survive. The second is empowerment to help them no longer be poor. (The budget for) these two things is indeed big and spread out in various ministries and institutions," the vice president remarked.
However, the poverty alleviation budget also includes program coordination and budget convergence.
"This budget should not be managed by each individual but must be converged to keep it effective," he emphasized.
Moreover, the government is targeting to reduce the extreme poverty rate to zero percent by 2024.
"Because the budget is big enough, the utilization must be more effective," Amin emphasized.
The vice president, who concurrently serves as chair of the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), highlighted that the government is taking effective measures through various ways to alleviate extreme poverty.
"We have 12 priority provinces for poverty alleviation. By 2024, we hope to reach zero-percent extreme poverty," he noted.
Data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) showed that the percentage of poor in Indonesia in September 2022 was 9.57 percent, an increase of 0.03 percentage points as compared to March 2022 and a decrease of 0.14 percentage points from September 2021.
The number of poor people in September 2022 reached 26.36 million, an increase of 0.20 million as compared to March 2022 and a decrease of 0.14 million in comparison with that recorded in September 2021.
In September 2022, the poverty line was recorded at Rp535,547.00 per capita per month. With calculations in September 2022, on average, poor households in Indonesia have 4.34 members, so the poverty line per poor household, on average, is Rp2,324,274.00 per poor household per month.
The government is eyeing to reach the goal of zero extreme poverty in the country by 2024. During the 2023-2024 period, the government is focusing on poverty alleviation in 514 priority districts and cities, with the extreme poverty rate at 2.3 to three percent.
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Translator: Desca Lidya N, Resinta S
Editor: Sri Haryati
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