The ability of people to understand the methodology of social audit needs to be sharpened in order to measure the effectivity as well as social, economic, and environmental benefit of policy planning and implementation conducted by local government and company also. Therefore, SOMASI NTB and PWYP Indonesia held training on social audit, titled “Poverty Alleviation Program for Community Center” on Monday, April 27, 2015.
Andi Irma, the companion of Community Center in Kertasari Village argued that plenty of poverty alleviation programs addressed for the village are not targeted. “Aid are not disbursed to the right people,” said Andi. Additionally, other problem is ineffective function of Village Consultative Body in monitoring the performance of village government.
“Social audit should be exercised by the citizen. This training is expected to improve the capacity of the people,” said Ulfah, the companion of Community Center in Dasan Anyar Village. According to her, citizen’s participation in Dasan Anyar Village is quite high, the village government also open and cooperative toward the citizen.
In Dasan Anyar Village itself, social audit has been conducted for free electricity and biogas installation assistance. It was triggered by the fact that the amount of actual assistance is not the same as the information delivered before. “By conducting social audit, it can reduce the burden of poor people living near the mining area,” added Ulfah.
It should be noted that there are two villages that included in the area near PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (PT NNT), which are Kertasari Village and Dasan Anyar Village. In those two villages, training on social audit for government’s poverty alleviation program and CSR of mining company was held. This effort also optimized Public Information Disclosure Law, so that the citizen can request public information to related government body.
Other than help to monitor government’s program, this social audit also aimed to access information on CSR of mining companies. “The need of impacted community is not fully considered in the CSR fund management. Even CSR is utilized to fund irrelevant program for people’s wealth, such as sport center which costs Rp 77.5 billion,” said Deni Wan Putra, Project Officer of Reversing Resource Curse Program of SOMASI NTB. Social audit is expected to initiate concrete people’s participation to promote more optimized poverty alleviation program, especially in the area near of mining sites.