MoSA Has Quickly Followed Up the Finding from Supreme Audit Agency

JAKARTA (June 23, 2023) - Ministry of Social Affairs strongly committed to distributing social assistance right on target, including ensuring the follow-ups of every report indicated that the assistance distribution is not right on target as found in Supreme Audit Agency’s newest report in Second Semester Audit Report Overview (IHPS) of 2022.

Related to the report, Minister of Social Affairs, Tri Rismaharini, ensures that Ministry of Social Affairs has followed up institutionally before publishing the report. Supreme Audit Agency’s finding consists of three parts, which are the establishment and distribution of Basic Food Assistance Program, the establishment, and distribution of Family Hope Program, and the establishment and distribution of Direct Cash Assistance for the transfer of Fuel Oil Subsidies.

The Agency’s finding is an administrative one, which is an improvement in social assistance distribution mechanism. For the finding, Ministry of Social Affairs has submitted a follow-up document about the first-semester monitoring of 2023 to gain status establishment from Supreme Audit Agency.

“So, this is part of supervision process in managing state finance. Starting when I lead the ministry, Ministry of Social Affairs is very cooperative towards supervision mechanisms by related institutions, including Supreme Audit Agency. I make sure that Ministry of Social Affairs has submitted follow-up report as the Agency recommends,” said Minister of Social Affairs in Jakarta on June 26.

As a real step in data improvement, Ministry of Social Affairs takes a quick step related to 10.249 basic food assistance/Non-Cash Food Assistance Program beneficiaries. Some of the beneficiaries work as directors or certain officials in some companies. The information is a detection result from Directorate General of Common Law Administration (Ditjen AHU) of Coordinating Ministry of Law and Human Rights a few months ago.

In Ministry of Social Affairs’ database, Family Beneficiaries are verified as poor with various statuses, such as cleaning service, labors, etc. The Ministry freeze the data and removed it from Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS). “We will cut them. If they complain later, state that they are poor, they are welcome to file a complaint to us, and we will evaluate the complaint,” said Minister of Social Affairs some time ago.

Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) appreciated Ministry of Social Affairs for the corruption prevention system reinforcement. Prevention and Monitoring Deputy of Corruption Eradication Commission or National Strategy of Corruption Prevention Executive Coordinator (Stranas PK), Pahala Nainggolan gave Ministry of Social Affairs in top rank from 76 Ministry/Institution having good action plan achievement of corruption prevention by utilizing national identification number (NIK).

“We reward ministry that actively contributes and responds to action plans. The action plan made by Ministry of Social Affairs is utilizing National Identity Number,” Pahala said to the press not so long ago.

Local Government Role

Local government plays a key role in Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS) improvement for the social assistance distribution to be right on target.  Laws Number 13 of 2011 on Poverty Reduction Management set the role of local government in poverty data update. 

“According to Law number 13 of 2011, the process is started with village council or ward council and proceeds in stages to the higher authority,” said Minister of Social Affairs. Local governments and the officials until village/ward level holds full authority in deciding who deserves to get social assistance and who’s not.

Referring to Law Number 13 of 2011 on Poverty Reduction Management, updating data becomes city/regency government’s authority. This is stated in clauses 8, 9, and 10 which in summary said updating data is a tiered process mandated to city/regency government.

Such as in clause 8. It was stated that verification and validation as mentioned in verse (4) are done by social welfare potency and source located in a district, ward, or village.

“So, Ministry of Social Affairs doesn’t collect the data directly. The ministry has to establish the data and the update is done by regency/city government. Recently, I validate the data every month. We will wait for the data from the regency/city in the first and second weeks. The third week is for verification, and the fourth week is for validation. The problem is there are still regency/city governments who are less or even inactive in updating data,” Risma says.

Suggest and Rebut Feature

To encourage poverty data improvement and to increase social assistance distribution accuracy, innovation is made by activating “Suggest” and “Rebut” features in Cek Bansos Application.

Minister of Social Affairs thought that Suggest and Rebut Feature activation is a breakthrough from data problem where there are people who deserve to get assistance, yet they don’t get one (exclusion error), and there are people who don’t deserve to get assistance, yet they get it (inclusion error).

The public will be able to help control data updates by using the feature. The public’s involvement can also accelerate updating process. Thus, they will help run local government duty as mentioned in Laws Number 13 of 2011.