Indonesia's poor protest manipulation of poverty statistics as more than 100 million live on less than $2 a day

Jakarta, August 15, 2008: About 3000 people, many of them women and children from the city's burgeoning urban poor shanty towns organised by the Poor People's Union (Serikat Rakyat Miskin Indonesia - SRMI), held a protest outside the Bureau of Statistics and the Department of Social Affairs in Jakarta to protest official reports about the poverty rate which, they charged, were "clearly very different to the facts in the field". According to UN estimates, nearly half the country's population of 220 million people lives on less than US$2 a day.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) had boasted the same day in his annual address at Parliament ahead of Independence Day (August 17) that the country's poverty rate has decreased from 17.7% in 2006 to 15.4% in March 2008. "The poverty figure in 2008 is the lowest ever," he said. This reduction was resulted by the government move of alleviating poverty recently, the President claimed. SBY's popularity dived after he hiked fuel prices in May, badly hurting millions of people who live on $2 a day or less.
SBY argued that if he won a second five-year term in the 2009 elections, he could continue the job of tackling the nation's main impediments to even better growth, including crumbling infrastructure and widespread corruption.
These latest statistics are very inaccurate, said SRMI leaders who have organised many protests over fuel price hikes which have hit Indonesia's struggling poor very badly.
Protest organisers said that the poor communities were very angry at the government's manipulation of statistics and persistent lying about their fate. Placards carried branded the bureau of statistics and the government "liars", and declared that the numbers of poor were growing. They demanded that the government repudiate the foreign debt and nationalise the foreign mining and oil companies to improve the welfare of the poor.
In July an independent study, reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs showed that the numbers of poor had risen since the fuel price hike which caused higher prices of essential commodities and transport.
In that report, the number of poor people in Indonesia was expected to reach 41 million from 37 million last year, Latif Adam, an economist at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences was quoted as predicting. And that was according to the Indonesian official poverty line. Nearly half the country's population of 220 million people lives on less than $2 a day, the standard international measure of poverty.
"Obviously with the rising [consumer] prices that followed the fuel price hike, people who were in the near-poor category have become poor," he told IRIN News.
Source: Berdikarionline,Metro TV News (Indonesia), IRIN News, Antara news

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Background: Minimum Commitment of The Star Reform Party (PBR) to The Indonesian Poor Union (SRMI)

Wednesday, August 6, 2008: We cannot let the 2009 General Election pass without any proposal for popular programs of a clean government, free education and health that will in various way press the election; nor letting the people choose their political leader without any political guidance based on their [people's] own fundamental problems. It is the time for the people to raise their consciousness, from previously voting Party A because of its high-profile, handing out money, good in making promises, and others, into voting a political party because it commits itself to realise programs put forward by the people.
Today we, the Indonesia Poor Union (SRMI) challenge the Star Reform Party (PBR) to see whether they have the courage to sign the Minimum Commitment detailed below:
A. To fight for national sovereignty in terms of rigorously push and accelerate the recovery of the nation's assets upon which the livelihood of the majority of people depend, push and accelerate the effort to repudiate foreign debt, and the construction of National Industrialisation.
B. To fight for the eradication of Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism in the life of the nation.
C. To listen and take into account SRMI's aspiration in any policy decision making that affect the poor.
D. To fight for free health service in all Hospitals and Society Health Centres (Puskesmas) across Jakarta in terms that the poor will be guaranteed to always have health card, to be able to freely and easily use ambulance, without being charged for medications, medical supplies, and without experiencing inhuman treatment by Hospitals/Society Health Centres.
E. To fight for free education in State Elementary Schools, Junior High Schools,and High Schools across Jakarta in terms of free registration, tuition (SPP), Education Development (BP3), re-registration, books, uniforms, and final tests (UAN).
F. To protect the poor in the entire Jakarta region from threats of eviction that offer no solution agreed by the poor.
G. To fight for the acceleration of rural economy development in order to reduce poverty in Jakarta.
If it will later show that these minimum commitments are not realised, then we, the poor organised under the Indonesian Poor Union (SRMI), will demand, control and exert direct pressure. Moreover, if some of our minimum comitment are betrayed, we will call to all the poor in Jakarta to not hesitate to withdraw their mandate and take the initiatives into their hands.
Jakarta, 2 August 2008
Acknowledged by:
Bursa Zarnubi - PBR General Chairperson
Witnessed and signed by:
Marlo Sitompul - SRMI General Chairperson
R. M. Syafi'i - PBR Deputy General Chairperson
Rusman H M - PBR General Secretary
Mr Sukardy - Head of Neighbourhood Association (RT) 7/5 of Pejagalan District
Mr Muchtar - Head of Neighbourhood Association (RT) 9/1 of Duri Utara Tambora District
Source: National Liberation Party Of Unity (PAPERNAS)