Jakarta, Jan 28 (Antara) - Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa in Jambi on Friday launched the last phase of the electronic warong (e-warong) pilot project, an electronic grocery store introduced by the government for social assistance recipients since mid-2016.
The government has decided to change the mechanism of its social assistance distribution system from cash-based to cashless through the e-warong project in a bid to prevent disparity in distribution, both in terms of quality and quantity.
Hence, the government was planning to launch at least 300 e-warong across the country designed to serve social assistance beneficiaries. All commodities offered by the shops will be supplied by the State Logistics Board Bulog.
Through the pilot project, the government will no longer conduct cash transactions for distributing the benefits of the Prosperous Family Card (KKS) to its holders. Recipients can use the card at the e-warong to avail social assistance to obtain sugar, cooking oil, and wheat.
Minister Parawansa inaugurated the e-warong service for the Family Hope Program (PKH) beneficiaries in Jambi City.
"Jambi City is the last location for trials in the implementation of the non-cash food assistance program, which is integrated with the e-warong service," the minister stated.
The number of recipients of the non-cash food assistance service program using KKS has reached 26 thousand families. All e-warong services in Indonesia are operating under a cooperative body. The e-warong service is an electronic-based aid distribution program to help poor citizens get easy access to basic necessities through a non-cash payment system.
In Jambi, besides launching the e-warong service, Parawansa also distributed social aid for the elderly, family hope program assistance, social assistance for the disabled, and rice assistance for the prosperous family program (Rastra).
The minister has set a target to offer non-cash social assistance to as many as three million families in 2017 under the PKH.
"The target is in addition to the 1.25 million families who have already received non-cash social aid in 2016. Currently, a total of three million families are to be offered non-cash social aid," Parawansa noted.
According to the minister, the change in the social aid distribution system from cash-based to a non-cash scheme was based on the directions of President Joko Widodo to improve inclusive financial services for poor families and to expand benefits that the citizens would receive from all forms of social assistance.
Food aid can be availed through e-warong by using KKS. This aid has reached 1.4 million families.
"The government has set a non-cash distribution system for offering various forms of social aid to the beneficiaries of the PKH by using the card for family welfare, which can also serve as a multi-function card," she pointed out.
Among the assistance that the beneficiaries will receive is rice for poor families called Rastra, or prosperous family rice. However, in some areas, cash is still being handed out in place of rice, as the supporting facilities are not yet ready to enable cashless distribution.
Minister Parawansa said during her visit to West Nusa Tenggara on Sunday (Jan 21) that as of now, the Rastra assistance is being provided in the form of cash. After supporting infrastructure is made available, cashless assistance will be offered.
Cashless food assistance will be coordinated by the local social service offices, while Rastra subsidy will be coordinated by the Rastra coordination team. Food subsidy and assistance will be made available by Bulog. These two programs are different.
For the Rastra subsidy program, the recipients will pay Rp1,600 per kilogram of rice. Recipients will receive 15 kilograms of rice every month.
For cashless food assistance, the recipient families will receive a monthly subsidy of Rp110 thousand that could be spent to purchase rice or other food items through the e-warong grocery stores.
The government will also do its best to provide good-quality Rastra to avoid the distribution of inferior-quality rice as was reported last year. During her visit to Aceh on Jan 21, Minister Parawansa stressed that Rastra recipients should no longer receive low-quality rice.
"We hope the Rastra program recipients would not receive poor-quality rice in future. In the past, inferior-quality rice was provided to the program's beneficiaries," the minister remarked while witnessing the distribution of Rastra assistance by Bulog in Takengon, Central Aceh.
Parawansa said the distribution of rice assistance this year was started from Takengon. Hence, the minister has called on district heads and mayors to speed up the issuance of the letter of distribution order for Bulog to channel the assistance. It is expected that the distribution would have been completed by the third week of January.
The minister said Bulog has also continued to make improvements, so that the Rastra provided for the financially weak people is suitable for consumption. The government is providing 15 kilograms of medium-quality Rastra for each recipient family.
(A014/INE)EDITED BY INE(T.A014/A/BESSR/A. Abdussalam) 28-01-2017 14:33: |
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