Jakarta (ANTARA) – The Social Affairs Ministry has made assurance that the cooking oil cash aid will reach beneficiary families of the staple food card program or non-cash food assistance (BPNT).
Since the launch of cooking oil cash aid on Thursday (April 7), the ministry has carried out several processes to ensure accessible assistance for beneficiaries, the ministry’s Secretary General, Harry Hikmat, stated during a virtual media briefing here on Friday.
“The current status is standing instruction, meaning that the data that has been collected and ready is 1,070,853 KPMs (beneficiary families). This has been prepared to be distributed immediately to the posts,” Hikmat stated.
Hikmat detailed that there were 18,446 families under the reverse process in the OM-SPAN (Online Monitoring of Treasury System and State Budget) and 17,200,276 families under the processing status, while the data of 510,425 beneficiary families was still being readied.
“This means the Social Affairs Ministry is ready to distribute cash assistance for cooking oil, and its distribution will be integrated along with the staple food card or BPNT on April 4-21,” he noted.
In the distribution of cooking oil cash aid, the ministry involves the Directorate General of Social Security Protection and the Directorate General of Poor People Handling.
Cooking oil cash aid, worth Rp100 thousand, given once every month in April, May, and June, thereby totaling Rp300 thousand per family, is handed over in cash through state-owned postal company PT Pos Indonesia.
The total number of beneficiaries reaches 20.5 million. Of the total beneficiaries, at least 18.8 million are recipients of BPNT, while the other 1.85 million are eligible to receive PKH (Family Hope Program) though are not yet listed as BPNT receivers.
Furthermore, the cash assistance for people to purchase cooking oil, whose price has been rising, was President Joko Widodo’s policy, especially ahead of the Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr period.
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