JAKARTA - The Ministry of Finance is preparing what is called productive social assistance to improve the resilience of MSMEs during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
"We are also preparing several additional programmes, because the realisation of programmes aimed at MSMEs still need to be improved, such as the provision of what is called productive social assitance," said Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati in a webinar held by the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs and Katadata on Tuesday (12/8).
According to Ms Indrawati, the government is currently identifying 9 million microbusinesses that will receive productive social assistance amounting to Rp 2.4 million each. Additionally, she added, the government will also provide interest-free loan assistance of Rp 2 million to ultra-microbusinesses.
"This is what the government can do to improve the resilience of microbusinesses, ultra-microbusinesses, and unbankable microbusinesses," Ms Indrawati said.
The greatest challenge posed by the programme, said the former World Bank Managing Director, is data that have been not updated while the government cannot afford to wait for data verification. Thus, the government will use existing data as well as data on bank customers with accounts worth less than Rp 1-2 million.
"While designing this programme, we remain in consultation [with the Audit Board] in order to avoid accountability issues, because everything needs to be accounted for," Ms Indrawati explained.
"The trade off between speed and accuracy, when the data is incomplete, poses a great challenge for us all." (MS)