The government takes firm action against corruptors of Social Assistance (Bansos) to the community. In addition to being included in the category of extraordinary crimes, social assistance corruption can add to the burden of suffering for the community.
The Covid-19 pandemic has made the people’s economic situation shattered because many were fired from work, even if they had jobs, they had to want their salaries to be cut because the company’s turnover had drastically reduced. Traders also feel the impact because sales are low, because many people choose to buy basic needs rather than secondary, let alone tertiary.
To help the people to reduce their distress, the government has provided social assistance (Bansos) since the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020). Initially the social assistance provided was in the form of basic food packages (rice, sardines, instant noodles, etc.). However, in the end, this social assistance model was replaced with cash because it was more practical to distribute it to all regions in Indonesia.
It’s a shame when there are people who are in trouble and should receive good quality social assistance, instead they get allotted rice, aka raskin (poor rice) which is mixed with a lot of dirt, like chicken food. The quality of social assistance packages has decreased drastically because of corruptors who have the heart to circumcise social assistance funds of up to 10,000 rupiah per bag.
The corruptor has already received a sentence of 12 years in prison and a fine of 500 million rupiah. However, the government is trying hard so that this bitter incident does not happen again, because if there are Social Assistance corruptors, the civilians will suffer. The Ministry of Social Affairs warned that anyone who is proven to be corrupt in Bansos will receive strict action.
The head of the Public Relations Bureau of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Hasyim, stated that the community must accept their rights and there should be no illegal levies. The government will take firm action against those caught embezzling social assistance funds. The reason is because the poor must get their rights.
In Law Number 31 of 1999 it is stated that the punishment for corruptors is a minimum of 4 years in prison and a maximum of 20 years. This punishment was added with a fine of hundreds of millions of rupiah to compensate for the state money he had taken greedily. So that he will give up and his actions will not be imitated by other employees or officials.
However, if the Bansos funds or the state money that was corrupted were more than 100 billion rupiahs, then the penalty was 16 to 20 years in prison, even life, depending on the judge’s policy. There was even a discourse on the death penalty for corruptors (as in China) as a deterrent effect, but this has never been executed in Indonesia.
The punishment for corruptors is indeed that harsh because they have harmed the state and also the small people. If they can’t get the money for the basic food packages, what is cut is the social assistance in cash, which is usually distributed in the kelurahan. The officials there asked for 10,000-50,000 rupiah per person for administrative reasons, but there was none because the money was for his personal pocket.
To prevent social assistance corruption, the government changed the basic social assistance package model to cash, and it was directly transferred to the beneficiary’s account. The goal is that it can be directly utilized by the people and there is no potential for illegal levies at the kelurahan office or village head office.
Social assistance is intended for the little people and must not be corrupted by unscrupulous officials, no matter how small the pieces. Everyone who administers Social Assistance cannot be corrupted because they are threatened with a minimum sentence of 4 years in prison, plus a fine of millions of rupiah. The government is not playing games to eradicate corruption, because they can undermine the country from within.
By: Made Prawira)* The author is a contributor to the Press Circle and Cikini Students
