Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Source: indonesiaexpat.biz) Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo on March 31 announced six social assistance programmes benefiting households seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
One among the schemes is to increase the number of beneficiary families of the conditional cash transfer programme from 9.2 million to 10 million, and the yearly assistance also rises 25 percent, starting from April.
The number of recipients of groceries cards will increase from 15.2 million to 20 million, with monthly benefits rising from 150,000 Rp (9 USD) to 200,000 Rp for nine months.
The Workers’ Card will be raised from 10 trillion Rp to 20 trillion Rp to cover around 5.6 million informal workers, and micro- and small-sized businesses. Beneficiaries will receive post-training incentives of 600,000 Rp, with training costs of 1 million Rp in the next four months.
The President also announced electricity fee waiver in three months for 24 million 450VA electricity customers, and 50 percent discount for 7 million subsidised 900VA customers.
The fifth social assistance programme has a total capital of 25 trillion Rp, providing logistics support for basic needs and basic food.
Meanwhile, the final programme will be carried out by the Financial Services Authority of Indonesia by providing credit packages for informal labourers such as taxi and motorcycle drivers, fishermen and those working in small businesses.
According to the World Bank report Aspiring Indonesia, only one out of five Indonesians is economically secure. Around 24.8 million Indonesians, or 9.22 percent of the population, live on under 1 USD a day and over 60 million are vulnerable to dropping into poverty./.
VNA
