[Indonesia] Govt denies whitewashing poverty situation in speech

from The Jakarta Post

The government is standing firm against allegations it attempted to whitewash the reality of poverty and unemployment in the country in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's state-of-the-nation address last week.

With backing from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), whose head was summoned to a Cabinet meeting here Tuesday, the government said the data presented in the Aug. 16 speech was the most recent published by the agency from September 2005.

"It was the latest data, and the President could not have any newer because the BPS will only release it next month," said Cabinet Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra.

BPS head Rusman Heriawan said Yudhoyono had since questioned him due to the clamor of allegations the almost year-old statistics were used to present a disingenuously positive view of his administration's achievements.

Yudhoyono later instructed the agency to in the future release data months before the presentation of the draft state budget for the following year.

Yusril said the President would not present the data again Wednesday when delivering a state address before the Regional Representatives Council (DPD). The speech will instead focus on regional autonomy and development, the minister added.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives plans to summon relevant ministers and Rusman for clarification about the data.

The chairman of House Commission VI on trade and industry, Didiek J. Rachbini, said Tuesday that government officials would be held accountable for withholding actual data in the 2007 state budget proposal made before the House plenary session.

"We will need them to clarify how old data could make its way into the President's state address."

He also vowed that his commission would carefully scrutinize all government data in the future.

Critics charge that Yudhoyono was wrong when he said that the poverty rate dropped from 23.4 percent in 1999 to 16 percent in late 2005.

It was later found that the 16 percent figure was from late 2004. Analysts estimate that there was in fact an increase in the number of people living below the poverty line due to fuel price hikes in 2005

Conservative estimates put the poverty rate at 18.5 percent.

State Minister for National Development Planning Paskah Suzetta has argued there was no attempt by the government to manipulate data because it was the most recent from the BPS.

As for new data from the results of the nationwide social and economic survey (Susenas) for 2005, Paskah said it would only be available in September.

In the speech, Yudhoyono also claimed that his administration managed to reduce unemployment from 11.2 percent in November 2005 to 10.4 percent in early 2006. Labor experts pointed out he referred only to "open" unemployment -- those of working age actively seeking employment -- without revealing the bleak overall situation of the huge number of underemployed in the 220 million population.