Social Minister Holds Video Conference with 33 Provincial Governments on Cash Social Aid

JAKARTA (April 17, 2020) - The Minister of Social Affairs, Juliari P. Batubara, accompanied by the Director General of Poverty Handling, Asep Sasa Purnama holds a video conference with the Regional Governments (Pemda) of 33 Provinces on Cash Social Aid in handling COVID-19 on 15 and 16 April 2020.

The Social Minister conveyed that the spirit of the Cash Social Aid was to help families who had never received the Social Aid Program from the Ministry of Social Affairs. "Currently, many people affected by COVID-19 are losing their jobs and their income subdued. This Cash Social Aid is aimed mainly at those who have never received aid from the Ministry of Social Affairs," said the Minister of Social Affairs.

Participating on the video conference are governors, regents/mayors, head of social services agency from 33 Provincial Governments. The video conference is to disseminate information of the new aid. The allocation of beneficiaries from each province will be informed later. “This video conference is to disseminate information about Cash Social Aid. We will send the initial allocation of each regency/city in the next few days," said the Minister of Social Affairs.

On this occasion, the Director General of Poverty Handling, Asep Sasa Purnama, explained the Cash Social Aid and the implementation mechanism. The Director General said that the Cash Social Aid is cash aid given to the beneficiaries in the context of preventing the impact of COVID-19. The cash aid will be given to 9,000,000 Beneficiary Families (KPM) at IDR 600,000 per month per KPM for 3 months from April 2020 to June 2020.

Asep Sasa also explained several points of its mechanism, including the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS) as a reference target recipients prepared by the Data and Information of Social Welfare Center (Pusdatin Kessos). The initial allocation of beneficiaries is prepared by the Ministry of Social Affairs.

The mechanism also includes regencies and cities to submit proposal of beneficiary candidates to the Ministry of Social Affairs through the approval of the Regent/Mayor, acknowledged by the Governor through Information System of Social Welfare – Next Generation (SIKS NG). The aid distribution process will be carried out by the partnership of PT POS and HIMBARA with the support of regional governments. Control and socialization of the Cash Social Aid are carried out by both central and regional governments in an integrated manner.

The Video Conference on Cash Social Aid for citizen outside of DKI Jakarta Province began on Wednesday, 15 April 2020. As many as 12 provincial governments participate on the first day. The rest 21 provincial governments participate on the next day, Thursday, 16 April 2020. The video conference aims to carry out the Cash Social Aid as well as possible to overcome the impact of COVID-19.