Civil servants proven to have abused their authority in order to obtain social assistance will face sanctions and will be asked to return the aid, Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Tjahjo Kumolo, has said.

“If it is proved, the person can be punished according to Government Regulation Number 94/2021 concerning Discipline of Civil Servants,” he informed in a statement received here on Thursday.

In addition, he also asked the Social Affairs Minister to hold a thorough investigation of civil servants who are suspected to have received social assistance, both under the family hope program (PKH) and non-cash food assistance (BPNT) scheme.

“To give the punishment to civil servants, the Social Affairs Minister must provide complete data on their name, employee identification number, and agency,” Menpan RB said.

The data would be reported to their respective Staffing Officer and an investigation would be carried out against the suspected civil servants, he added.

Although it is not specifically regulated, civil servants do not fit into the criteria of social assistance recipients since they receive a steady income from the government, both in the form of salary and allowances, he noted.

Earlier, Social Affairs Minister, Tri Rismaharini, had revealed at a press conference here on Thursday that thousands of civil servants were suspected of receiving PKH and BPNT.

“After submitting our data on social assistance recipients to the State Civil Service Agency, the agency indicated that there were 31,624 civil servants included in the data,” Rismaharini informed.

According to the data, 28,965 officials are in active service, while the rest are retired – and none of them are eligible for receiving social assistance, she noted.

Source: Antara News