The President is Intensively Distributing Assistance for MSMEs Affected by Covid-19
By: Putu Prawira )*
The Covid-19 disaster has hit not only the health sector but also the community economy. To anticipate this, the Government has prepared a number of economic strategies including the distribution of assistance to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
The distribution of the Presidential Assistance for Productive Micro Businesses (Banpres PUM), which began on August 17, 2020, will be distributed massively. Next week, it is targeted that 9.1 million micro and small entrepreneurs will receive cash assistance worth Rp 2.4 million.
Next week the government will also distribute productive emergency working capital, aka presidential assistance (banpres). The total is Rp. 2.4 million to 9.1 million traders, small and micro entrepreneurs.
President Jokowi said the traders or small entrepreneurs who were present at the State Palace represented 9.1 million micro and small traders / entrepreneurs who next week will receive similar assistance.
Jokowi said this had started before the grand opening next week for 9.1 million small entrepreneurs across the country. Everything will be transferred.
The President understands the current conditions of small traders as well as difficulties amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Not only small business actors, large and medium entrepreneurs are also feeling the impact. The Head of State said that other countries in the world also felt the difficult economic conditions.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have experienced difficult times for both small and large businesses. Therefore we have to work even harder so that the economy can return to its normal state before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rully Indrawan as secretary of the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs said, until yesterday, this assistance had been distributed to 1 million business actors.
The Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs together with the Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP) are in synergy to ensure recipients of Productive Micro Business Banpres assistance are right on target. As many as 12 million MSME players are targeted to receive this assistance by September 2020.
According to Teten, this cooperation is the key to success so that the Banpres PUM is on target. For this reason, his party will work together with BPKP in cleansing the data of micro business recipients.
The cooperation between the two parties will also continue to be endeavored so that any assistance from the government for MSME actors can be absorbed properly and on target.
Meanwhile, Muhammad Yususf Ateh as Head of BPKP said that data cleansing would be carried out so that the requirements for PUM Banpres recipients were met. According to Ateh, the criteria that must be met include never receiving loans from banks and micro-entrepreneurs.
Ateh explained, his party will also check data with the credit information system program (SIKP) at the Ministry of Finance, down to the regional level to ensure that the recipients of Banpres PUM are clean. He emphasized that the cooperation is for data integration so that it is right on target.
On a different occasion, Josua Pardede as the Chief Economist of Permata Bank assessed that the Banpres PUM program could increase the production capacity of small and micro business actors, which are very large in number when compared to medium and large businesses.
So that later they can survive, and can retain employees or employees, or maintain their lives if they have employees.
According to him, this assistance can reduce the unemployment rate so that later it will have an impact on limiting the potential reduction in people’s purchasing power. However, working capital from the government also needs to be supported by the private sector.
The allocation for the 12 million micro and small businesses has not been able to reach all micro and small business units scattered in remote areas in Indonesia.
Apart from working capital assistance, the government will also provide assistance for workers whose wages are below IDR 5,000,000 per month. Incentive assistance of Rp. 2.4 million for 4 months or Rp. 600 thousand per month.
To quickly rise from the economic downturn, the government needs to move quickly in disbursing stimulus funds that have been budgeted for micro, small and medium enterprises. It was recorded that 85.42% of MSME players were only able to survive for one year amid the economic downturn due to the corona virus pandemic.
The red carpet deserves to be given to MSME players, especially since this sector has been the backbone of the Indonesian economy. This sector also proved to be “resilient” when it came to the economic crises in 1998 and 2008.
)* The author is active in the Cikini Press and Student Circle