Arriving at the palace in the afternoon, Yusuf reported that the government had removed about 1.9 million citizens from the list of social assistance recipients following a recent data update.
"Over 1.9 million people have been declared no longer eligible to receive social aid. Consequently, we shifted their quota to those more deserving," he told the press.
The minister assured the public that the government is committed to tightening aid allocation and distribution procedures to ensure assistance strictly benefits those in need, as mandated by Presidential Instruction No. 4 of 2025.
He explained that the instruction tasks Statistics Indonesia (BPS) with consolidating and improving the accuracy of social aid recipient data, making it the single reference for ministries, agencies, and regional governments.
"Continuously updating data is necessary because demographic changes occur daily due to deaths, births, marriages, and domicile changes," Yusuf pointed out.
On the verification process, the minister noted that regional governments are tasked with conducting updates, while BPS is responsible for ranking targeted aid recipients by priority and publicizing verified data every three months.
In this regard, he explained that the removal of 1.9 million names from the national social aid beneficiary list resulted from verification carried out between March and April this year by BPS, district and municipal governments, and Family Hope program facilitators.
The verification, conducted through door-to-door visits to aid recipients, also led to major revisions in the list of beneficiaries of subsidized contributions to state health insurance provided by BPJS Kesehatan.
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Translator: Andi F, Tegar Nurfitra
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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