Tangerang. Social Affairs Minister Saifullah Yusuf announced on Thursday the launch of a digital app designed to involve public participation in verifying the eligibility of social aid beneficiaries.

The app, named CekBansos, enables community members to check the status of beneficiaries and propose updates to the list of eligible recipients.

While the government has collected data on millions of low-income families, Saifullah said that the actual conditions are very dynamic. Families who qualified for social assistance last month might no longer meet the criteria this month due to improved circumstances.

“We provide an informal channel for the public to propose or challenge beneficiaries of government aid through the CekBansos app,” Saifullah said during an exclusive interview with BTV. “A user may report that their neighbor is no longer eligible due to their wealth or, conversely, propose new beneficiaries.”

The app serves as a complement to the formal data collection system, which gathers information on potential aid recipients from the smallest administrative units, such as rural and neighborhood levels, to the national database managed by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

“Basically, we want to keep updating the data using various means,” the minister explained.

Centralized Data System
Saifullah also highlighted President Prabowo Subianto’s directive to centralize all demographic and economic data under the BPS.

“All ministries and state agencies must file their data with the BPS, which will compile and synchronize them into a unified national database,” he said.

The remarks follow the president's announcement of a plan to distribute free rice to low-income families to mitigate the impacts of the recent hike in value-added tax (VAT).

According to Saifullah, the rice aid program will target approximately 16 million families, providing 10 kilograms of rice per month for six months.