Yogyakarta, June 12th 2020 – In responding to the budget reallocation policy that caused by COVID-19, from the Dana Desa allocation (Village Funds Program) to the Bantuan Langsung Tunai Dana Desa (Direct Cash Assistance of the Village Funds Program) or BLT-DD as the social safety net for the Indonesian people, FISIPOL presented a discussion titled ‘Direct Cash Assistance of the Village Funds Program Policy’ on last Friday through WebEx and YouTube Live.
It presented Nurul Aini and Fina Itriyati, two lecturers of the Department of Sociology who are doing a research about the gap between the policy of BLT-DD and its implementation in the grassroot. It analyzed through three level of evaluations: in a macro level, the central government level, it represented by Bito Wikantosa the Director of Basic Social Services Directorate of Directorate General for Development and Empowerment of Rural Community of the Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration. The middle level was represented by Ani Widyani as the Village Head of Sumbermulyo Village, Bambanglipuro, Bantul. In the micro level, it represented by one of the beneficiaries of BLT, Yusuf Murtiono, as the Board of Presidium of Civil Society Formation (FORMASI) of Kebumen Regency.
Bito Wikantosa began the discussion in a perspective of the central government, he explained that COVID-19 had systemic impact and it became the main reason for relaxing the Village Funds that was switched to become the social safety net. “The assumption was, the social safety net would finance the people who were categorized as poor, but there were many new poor group emerged that should be helped with BLT-DD. The Village Funds were managed by the village itself. The data collection and decision also determined by each villages through deliberation,” Bito said.
But the Integrated Social Welfare Data (Data Terpadu Kesejahteraan Sosial/DTKS) that would determine the BLT recipients, often overlapping with the Hope Family Program (Program Keluarga Harapan/PKH) of the Ministry of Social Affairs and the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) that descended on the villages. The determinatination basis of the recipients were often different between the social safety nets. “Different condition of the villages became the reason of the different decision making process. The instruction of VIllage Funds that instructed to be representative and deliberative democracy must be done earnestly. There were villages that share the BLT to all of the people evenly, or there were people in other villages that did not get the aid, or even there were people that did not get any information at all,” Bito said.
Ani Widyani as the Village Head of Sumbermulyo Village said that after the issuance of the Regent Decree No. 154 of 2020 about the emergency response of COVID-19 in Bantul, all of the villages in Bantul also issued a Head Village Decree about the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a disaster, and rearranged the Village Budget (APBDes) in the fifth field about disaster management and village emergency.
“When it comes to BLT, the target is the poor families non-PKH that are included in the 14 indicators of the BLT candidates that the data basis came from Neighborhood Association (RT). In our DTKS there are 583 families, and after selecting it, it became 105 families or just 18,1% that have passed the indicators. If we had not verified it, at least 500 families would get the aid. It would be very unfortunate if it was not right on the target,” Ani said.
Other than that, Ani also complained about many confusions that were faced by the village in distributing the BLT. “There were many regulation problems, from the Ministry of Village, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Finance, from the central government to the provinces, regencies, there were no sinergy at all and it was overlapping one another. We were very confused and we were in a very difficult situation. On one hand we have followed many regulations, but on the other hand there were many demands from the people to distribute the aid evenly and right on the target,” Ani said.
“Our hope is, there is just one measured data that become the reference for all of the institutions, it could be read and accessible so any exclusion errors or scattered data can be avoided in the future,” Ani added. Next, Yusuf Martiono that was represented the community of BLT recipients also said that BLT-DD policy has injured the village’s authority because of the emergency reason. It seemed like it just done the commands from the central government.
“Village has the authority over the data, but when it discussed with Ministry of Social Affairs, most of them were rejected because the Ministry of Social Affairs was treated as the only data authority. Even a dead person was still included as the BLT recipient. We tried to communicate with Ministry of Social Affairs, but it was very difficult,” Yusuf said.
After the explanations from the three speakers, Arie Sujito as the lecturer of the Department of Sociology FISIPOL UGM said that he was very sorry to hear that, because the definition of emergency situation, law interpretation, and the political practice of the villages authority were still top-down. “Regulation conflict often came from a mainstream technocratic perspective from the Ministry of Finance. Maybe the Ministry of Villages should consolidate the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Home Affairs,” Arie said and also the closing of that discussion.