The Team Has Not Found Any Connection of the Buried Basic Food in Depok to the Ministry of Social Affairs

JAKARTA (August 3, 2022) - The Ministry of Social Affairs is taking proactive steps in line with media reports about necessities that are piled up in the Depok area. The Ministry of Social Affairs has sent a team to check directly in the field and conduct a picking test.

At the direction of the Minister of Social Affairs Tri Rismaharini, a team of Inspector General (Itjen) of the Ministry of Social Affairs was present at the location of buried basic necessities in Tirtajaya Village, Sukmajaya District, Depok City.

The search results show that the basic food items i.e rice and other materials occurred in 2020. The delivery of aid was carried out during heavy rains, causing damage to food ingredients so that they were not suitable for consumption.

In a press conference with the media (02/08), the Minister of Social Affairs stated that the damage had been replaced by a transporter service provider i.e JNE. "They (JNE) have purchased the same rice from Perum Bulog and then distributed it back to beneficiaries according to the list of recipients," said the Minister of Social Affairs.

From direct observations in the field, the team obtained two important notes, namely from the rice packaging and the types of necessities that were buried. The Minister of Social Affairs stated that sacks of rice do not have a special label as a standard policy on social assistance channels in 2020.

"So the rice doesn't have a label. In addition, there was also found flour and eggs. Even though the social assistance at that time was only rice,” said the Minister of Social Affairs. Whether the labels on the rice sacks were removed or what, the team could not confirm yet.

Each rice aid from the Ministry of Social Affairs is labeled "Assistance by the President of the Republic of Indonesia through the Ministry of Social Affairs". This is the standard policy for the 2020 social assistance channel.

Second, the Inspectorate General's team smelled an unpleasant odor which was suspected to be rotten eggs and wheat flour in the buried food ingredients.

Without these characteristics, the Ministry of Social Affairs suspects that the buried rice and other food ingredients are not assistance distributed through the Ministry of Social Affairs to deal with the impact of Covid-19.
 
"So we have not found any connection between the basic needs and the Social Affairs Ministry's social assistance program. However, we will wait for further investigations carried out by the Criminal Investigation Unit at the National Police Headquarters," said the Minister of Social Affairs.

In addition to being responsive, the Ministry of Social Affairs is also cooperative by providing access to the National Police to obtain the data and information needed to reveal more about the basic food items. Since the beginning, the Ministry of Social Affairs has collaborated with the Food Crime Investigation Unit of the Police.

Member of the Food Crime Investigation Unit of the National Police, Kombes Pol. Eka Mulyana who was present on the occasion stated that the Food Task Force had followed up by coming directly to the scene. According to Eka, there are several people who we take information from, including from JNE. The Task Force is also working with Depok Police investigators.

"We will investigate the results of the crime scene further, whether there are elements of violations or other crimes. I ask the public to be patient because the investigation process is currently underway. Later there will be an update from the Criminal Investigation Department," he said.