Jakarta (ANTARA) - Minister of Social Affairs Tri Rismaharini inaugurated the Social Affairs Command Center to accelerate disaster response and the distribution of social assistance.

The command center, which is located in Cawang Kencana Building of the Ministry of Social Affairs in East Jakarta, is expected to speed up the ministry's works, Rismaharini said.

"All of our work will be measurable. We can monitor the distribution of social assistance through the command center," she informed in Jakarta on Tuesday.

If the ministry receives a report regarding a disaster, the command center will immediately contact agencies in the area closest to the disaster to provide assistance, she explained.

For example, recently, an earthquake with a fairly high magnitude of 7.2 that struck Papua New Guinea also affected Papua province. The command center immediately followed up on the disaster, with Disaster Preparedness Cadets (Tagana) in the field reporting the conditions through pictures. This allowed the ministry to promptly deploy assistance.

"When the disaster occurred at midnight, I immediately asked them to build hospital tents. At three in the morning, a mother gave birth in that tent. With the command center, our assistance will be right on target," the minister disclosed.

During the construction of the command center, the Social Affairs Ministry also prepared qualified software. The human resources (HR) posted at the command center also received training from the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) on responding to disasters.

Rismaharini said her ministry already has a special server for the command center and has made improvements regarding data security.

"We are very concerned about data leaks. We invited academics and lecturers and then we fix it," she added.

She informed that the command center is in charge of coordinating reports received by the Ministry of Social Affairs from the Social Assistance Guard, SP4N-LAPOR, Directorate General of the Ministry of Social Affairs, and whistleblowers.

The command center was developed since 2022 and started its operational trial period in June 2022. During the operational period, it ran for 24 hours with the assistance of 27 employees from the Ministry of Social Affairs, the minister informed.

The command center’s inauguration event was also attended by members of Commission VIII of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI), Ina Amalia and I Komang Koheri. Commission VIII lauded the Ministry of Social Affairs for setting up the command center.

"The rights of people who are assisted by the Ministry of Social Affairs are fulfilled. The data of people who are not detected by the Data and Information Center (Pusdatin) will be recorded in the command center," Amalia said.

She added that the command center would need an additional budget from the ministry, therefore, she would support a discussion regarding this at Commission VIII.


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Translator: Devi Nindy Sari R, Resinta S
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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