"The concept on poverty eradication must now be changed. It should not focus on reducing the poverty rate but on increasing the number of prosperous people," Anies Baswedan, one of the the 11 participants of the PD presidential candidate convention, said here on Sunday.
Speaking during a debate on the convention at Sahid Hotel here, Anies Baswedan said that the increase in the number of prosperous people, poverty will by itself disappear.
He said that one of the ways how to improve the peoples welfare was to assist the poor with subsidized programs.
"The subsidized assistance programs should be followed with providing education and skill training for them," he said.
Anies who has academic background also emphasized the need for the government to ensure that the subsidized programs would reach all Indonesian people.
In the meantime, the other convention participant Dahlan Iskan said that poverty in the country was the most urgent problem to be overcome owing to the fact that poverty now had been mixed up with injustices.
"In the past, I was poor and all fellow residents in one village were also poor. Now, there are poor people but they can see in their surrounding luxury cars. This actually reflects injustices," he said.
Therefore, Dahlan reaffirmed his proposal that the social affairs minister should be given a special assignment to fight poverty without any other tasks which were actually not necessary.
"The social affairs minister should focus on handling the poor. There is no need for him or her to handle draws with prizes," he said jokingly.
(A014)
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
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