The special autonomy fund (Otsus) for Papua has been disbursed by the Indonesian government over the past two decades, since 2000 to be precise. However, this funding has failed to support the development and economic growth of the Papua region.
So said the Chairman of the Covid 19 Monitoring Agency and the Economic Recovery Program, Arief Poyuono to reporters, Sunday (21/2).
Arief Poyuono explained that the government has allocated funds amounting to 7.4 billion US dollars which is equivalent to more than half of Papua's gross domestic product in 2019.
In 2019, Papua also received village funds of US $ 4.6 billion and US $ 1.9 billion for infrastructure development.
However, with this huge financial assistance, Papua's economic growth remains stagnant, he said.
The latest data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows that the Papuan economy contracted by minus 15.75 percent in the last quarter of 2019.
Gross Regional Domestic Growth plunged from 7.37 percent in 2018 to minus 13.63 percent in the first quarter of 2019.
In addition, continued Arief, many reports question the effectiveness of the special autonomy fund because it is considered unsuccessful in resolving the complex Papua problem. This is because the problems in Papua are closely related to political and social issues in the region.
The rise of corrupt practices caused by the low quality of human resources and weak transparency in the Papuan regional government only worsens the existing conditions, continued Arief.
The general chairman of the United FSP BUMN said that many corrupt elites misused the special autonomy funds for their political interests.
As evidence, in 2017 there was a survey that measured the integrity of local government officials, placing Papua in the lowest position.
This survey shows that civil servants in Papua are more prone to abuse their authority than in other provinces.
Therefore, he continued, it is important to have political and social support from the community and Papuan community leaders to urge law enforcers for corruption to enforce the law related to the misappropriation of special autonomy funds that have been disbursed, but it has not brought about any changes in the welfare of the Papuan people.
"The criminal act of corruption against the Special Autonomy fund in Papua is also supported by high-ranking officials in Jakarta who work with elite officials in Papua, he said.
According to Arief, it would be useless if the special autonomy funds were disbursed in large amounts if there had been no law enforcement action against the misuse of the special autonomy funds so far.
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