GOVERNOR OF Central Sulawesi Longki Djanggola said that his area had recorded a lot of progress in development, but one thing that still had to get serious attention from all parties was the poverty rate which was still quite high.
“The issue of poverty is still a concern, although it was successfully reduced by 0.32 percent from 14.01 percent (March 2018) to 13.69 percent in September 2018,” the governor said in remarks read by General Administrative and Legal Assistant Organization Muliono, at the Organization Forum Regional Leadership (OPD) in Palu, Tuesday (3/26/2019).
According to the governor, the Central Sulawesi poverty rate is still far above the national average in 2018 of 9.66 percent.
The population of Central Sulawesi itself in 2015 was around 3.2 million.
The same goes for the Human Development Index (HDI) which is still lower than the national figure even though the trend is increasing every year, from 67.47 in 2016 to 68.11 in 2017 while the national HDI in 2017 recorded 70.81 points.
However, there has been quite a lot of progress achieved by Central Sulawesi in the third year of the Regional Medium Term Development Plan (RPJMD). For example, Central Sulawesi’s economic growth in the past two years has always been higher than the national growth which is struggling at 5.17 percent.
“In 2018, the Central Sulawesi economy grew by 6.3 percent, slightly slowing from 2017 at 7.14 percent as a result of the natural disaster on September 28, 2018,” Muliono said.
Improvements in the distribution of individual income are also getting better marked by a decline in the Gini index from 0.345 in 2017 to 0.317 in 2018.
With the OPD forum, the governor expects provincial and district / city working elements to synergize the proposed performance-based programs / activities for 2020, appropriate planning and budgeting and clear targets.
The intended target is to grow an economy of 6 to 7 percent, inflation of 3.5 to 4.5 percent, GDP per capita of Rp53 to Rp.54 million, the Gini index in the range of 0.3 to 0.325, lowering the poor population by 87 to 86.4 percent, the level unemployment 4 to 3.3 percent and increasing the HDI at 68.5 to 69.5.
“So that it can produce a formulation of development program plans that are sharp according to priority scale and policy synergies between the provincial and district / city governments,” he explained.
Also present at the Central Sulawesi provincial and district / city OPD Forum were banking, business, academic and work partners.
The OPD Forum takes on the theme of Rebuilding Central Sulawesi through strengthening the quality of human capital and infrastructure. This theme is in line with the 2016-2021 RPJMD priorities, namely improving the quality of human resources, strengthening competitiveness and strengthening regional infrastructure networks.
After the opening, a desk will be continued between the provincial and district / city OPDs at the provincial Bapedda office until Thursday (28/3). **
Source: Humpro Central Sulawesi
