To check whether a person is registered as a BLT beneficiary, the government has launched the official website cekbansos.kemensos.go.id. User simply has to input their domicile data according to the ID card and a notification will appear informing whether the person is eligible or not.
The complaint channel should also allow those who are not included to re-register so it can be directly crosschecked by the system. If they are eligible, they can be immediately redesignated as a recipient. Otherwise, their registration will be rejected.
This measure will further ensure that there is no discrimination in the BLT disbursement. And of course, this data will also improve the quality of existing DTKS. By opening this registration space, the number of exclusion errors can be minimized and the intended recipients will get the cash assistance they deserve.
BSU (Wage Subsidy Program) for formal workers
The increase in fuel prices will certainly have an impact on the working class. One of the social assistance schemes aimed at workers is the wage-subsidy assistance (BSU) to preserve their purchasing power.
BSU allocation in Budget 2022 amounted to Rp8.8 trillion for 8.8 million formal workers. This translates to Rp1,000,000 per worker. The government promised to realize it before Eid al-Fitr in 2022 but this failed to materialize. The government then promised to disburse it the second time but workers have been left disappointed again as rising inflation started to bite.
The minimum wage increase in 2022 was 1.09 percent on average, but as inflation reached 4.69 percent year-on-year in August, this has been too insignificant to make a difference. The BSU should be realized immediately regardless of the increase in fuel prices, due to the fact that inflation is already more than quadruple the yearly minimum wage increase.
If now the manpower minister linked the BSU to fuel price hike, she has actually violated the 2022 State Budget (APBN) Law. She must also explain why workers will only get Rp600,000 instead of the Rp1,000,000 as stipulated by law.
The House should rebuke the Minister for her non-compliance with the APBN Law relating to BSU and grill her on why the budget is used to compensate workers for a fuel price hike.
Second, according to the Manpower Ministry, prospective BSU recipients are determined based on data from BPJS Ketenagakerjaan (BPJS: Healthcare and Social Security). This means that recipients are formal workers with a maximum salary of Rp3.5 million per month, or equivalent to the regional minimum wage. This, despite the fact that since BSU disbursement in 2020 the public has criticized the source of data used, and the qualification that it is given only to formal workers who are active participants of BPJS Ketenagakerjaan.
The Manpower Minister should open up access to wage-earning workers whose employers are not registered with BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, ride-hailing drivers, workers who have been laid off without pay or recently-dismissed workers, returning migrant workers who have finished their contracts, and non-wage workers registered with BPJS Ketenagakerjaan. This can be done if the Manpower Ministry starts by opening registration for these workers and verifies it later.
With the increase in the number of BSU recipients targeted in 2022 to 16 million, there will be unspent funds, if the Rp9.6 trillion allocation is disbursed based on BPJS Ketenagakerjaan’s active participant data. This has been confirmed, after further crosschecking with Manpower Ministry new data, recently-released, showing that the number of BSU recipients in 2022 actually consists of the 14.6 million workers registered with BPJS Ketenagakerjaan.