PALANGKA RAYA – EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION BUREAU. Acting Provincial Secretary Nuryakin, accompanied by Acting Head of Social Service of Central Kalimantan Province Farid Wajdi, attends virtually the Monitoring and Evaluation Meeting for the Distribution of Social Assistance for COVID-19 Emergency PPKM in Bajakah 2 Meeting Room, Governor’s Office, Wednesday (7/7/2021).

This meeting was held by the Ministry of Home Affairs Directorate General of Regional Financial Development to discuss the acceleration of social assistance distribution as mandated in Minister of Home Affairs Instruction Number 15 of 2021 on the Implementation of Emergency Community Activity Restriction (PPKM) in Java-Bali region in Dictum 8.

The Director General of Regional Administration, represented by the Director of Disaster Management, Edy Suharmanto, explained that Dictum 8 mandates to accelerate the process of distributing social assistance and social safety nets sourced from the Regional Budget and synchronizing social assistance originating from the State Budget with social assistance sourced from the Regional Budget. Meanwhile, for regencies/municipality that do not implement Emergency PPKM, they will continue to apply Micro PPKM and optimize the Covid-19 Handling Post at the village and district level.

Meanwhile, the Director General of Regional Finance, Mochamad Ardian, gave an overview of the realization of social assistance distribution acceleration in accordance with the Ministerial Decree 15/2021 and the Minister of Home Affairs Circular Letter. The Budget Realization Report as of June 30, 2021 shows that there are still many local governments that have not realized the distribution of social assistance. Therefore, Mochamad Ardian emphasized that this should be an attention on how to handle the realization of social assistance in the Regional Budget. “We hope that local governments can take acceleration steps and of course it is right on target,” he said.

Apart from social assistance and social safety nets, another important thing that must be considered is the incentives for health workers. “This is the attention of the President to encourage the handling of Covid-19, one of which is through vaccinators. Please, the incentives for health workers who have been at the forefront of handling Covid-19 can be paid immediately,” Ardian asked.

Technical constraints such as the application system and lack of coordination between local governments, BKAD, Health Office, and Health Facilities are suspected to be the causes of the unpaid health worker incentives. “We ask for the support of Regional Secretaries to immediately coordinate and consolidate efforts to accelerate the payment of health workers incentives. We really hope that the role of Regional Government Inspectors is to be able to provide facilitation and assistance in order to maintain accountability,” he added.

The Inspector General of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Tumpak Haposan Simanjuntak, also confirmed that he would hold special serial meetings for supervision that provide periodic assistance to regional supervision.

Also participating in the meeting were Regional Secretaries, Inspectors, Heads of BKAD, and Heads of Social Service Office at Provincial/Regency/Municipality level throughout Indonesia. (dew/ben/translated by feb)