Jakarta (ANTARA) – The Ministry of Finance is encouraging village governments to contribute more to handling extreme poverty through the issuance of Finance Minister’s Regulation (PMK) Number 128 of 2022 on Management of Village Funds.
Head of the Village Funds Sub-directorate of the ministry Jamiat Aries Calfat stated that earlier, it was regulated in PMK Number 190 of 2021 that beneficiaries of village cash assistance (BLT) were not beneficiaries of aid from the central or regional government.
“In the PMK Number 128 of 2022, this provision has been changed, so that beneficiary families of village BLT can also receive social assistance from regional governments or (assistance) sourced from APBD (regional budget),” he stated at the Getting to the Core of the PMK 128/2022 webinar followed here on Thursday.
Statistics Indonesia (BPS) stated that the number of poor people in March 2022 stood at 26.16 million comprising 11.82 million people in urban areas and 14.34 million people in rural areas.
According to Calfat, through the issuance of the ministerial regulation, the Ministry of Finance has encouraged village governments to provide social assistance to people in extreme poverty to support them in tackling the situation.
The regulation supports President Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi’s) directive after the announcement of the increase in fuel price, in which regional governments are urged to allot two percent of the General Allocation Fund (DAU) to be used as social assistance for poor people and those vulnerable to poverty.
Through Presidential Regulation Number 104 of 2021, President Jokowi stated that at least 40 percent of the village funds should be allocated for village BLT, 20 percent for food and animal security, and eight percent for COVID-19 handling.
In the latest regulation, the government regulates that the remaining village BLT is no longer stored in the state treasury account but is returned to the villages to be used as a poverty alleviation budget, for instance, through the stunting handling program.
“After being distributed to the concerned villages, the funds must be used or prioritized for handling extreme poverty,” Calfat remarked.
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