Social Solidarity Should Be the Spirit in Proposing Poverty Data

JAKARTA (February 21st 2020) - Social solidarity can be a spirit in the process of proposing poverty data. Through sub-district meetings, fellow community members can inform their neighbors who deserves assistance.

"If you know that a neighbor in the nearest neighborhood deserves assistance, it should be brought in at the village meeting to be proposed. Citizens who have the right must be escorted so that their data is truly included in the DTKS. This is the most relevant context for the spirit of social solidarity, ”said the Head of the Program and Budget Planning Division, Radik Karsadiguna, at the Gresik Regency DPRD Consultation Meeting, in Jakarta, Friday (21/02/2020).

According to Radik, many parties have complained that the data is not on target. After investigating it, the root of the problem was in the village meetings that did not comply with the provisions or were not even implemented. "In fact, good or bad data depends on this forum," he said.

Data as the result of village/sub district consensus and as an official report that is sent to the Social Services Agency. From the Social Services Agency it is sent to the Ministry of Social Affairs accompanied by an endorsement from the Regent. "This data will eventually enter the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS) to be ranked and determined by the Minister of Social Affairs for assistance," said Radik.

On the same occasion, Head of Publication and News Division Salahuddin Yahya emphasized that the regions should also provide a budget for updating data and supervising its implementation. "Because, without a budget, of course activities cannot run," said Yahya.

The total number of households in Gresik Regency is 99,655 million and the new proposal is 1,239 million. Meanwhile, the updating of data in Gresik Regency based on the January 2020 period finalization was still at 16.8%. This figure is certainly still very far from expectations. Even though all social assistance, including assistance from other ministries, comes from this DTKS data.

At the end of the meeting, the Gresik Regency DPRD committed to improving its legislative, supervisory and budgeting functions as well as overseeing the implementation of the distribution of social assistance in Gresik Regency. After this meeting, hopefully the updating of data in Gresik Regency will run as it should be so that cases of mis-targeted assistance do not recur.