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Vice President Ma'ruf Amin at the coordination meeting to end extreme poverty at the NTT Governor's office, Sunday, October 17, 2021. (ANTARA/HO-Setwapres/rst) - 

Vice President Ma'ruf Amin urged the East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) provincial government to act promptly to handle extreme poverty by implementing contextual and applicable programs for the affected community.

"I want the local government to implement a contextual program, which means the program will be right on target or proffer actual benefits to the community," Vice President Amin noted in a statement issued by  the Press, Media and Information Bureau of the Vice President's Secretariat on Monday.

The instruction was delivered directly by Amin while chairing a coordination meeting related to extreme poverty reduction with the NTT provincial government at the NTT Governor's Office on October 17.

Amin noted that implementation of the extreme poverty reduction program, as determined by the central government, must prioritize the affected community, so that the benefits are truly felt by people of NTT from the extremely poor category.

NTT is one of the seven provinces, with a total of 35 districts, whose extreme poverty rate will be addressed by the government in a bid to reach zero percent by the end of 2021.

The province's five districts of East Sumba, South Central Timor, Rote Ndao, Central Sumba, and East Manggarai are included in the priority agenda for tackling extreme poverty.

Meanwhile, NTT Governor, Viktor Laiskodat, remarked that NTT was the third-poorest province in Indonesia. However, of the five districts, Viktor noted that East Manggarai should not be included in the district, with the most extreme poor people.

"East Manggarai is a very fertile area, and indeed, the main problem is infrastructure. I do not have concrete data for including East Manggarai in the category of poor district," Laiskodat stated.

To this end, Laiskodat noted that the NTT provincial government will continue to encourage the local government to prioritize solving the problem of extreme poverty by optimally implementing contextual programs.

"Now, we are pushing through programs, both at the provincial and district level," he added//ANT