Ask Indonesians what the government has done for them recently, and the answer is usually a laugh or a shrug. In the regency of Kediri, in Lombok, the principal of a state school complains that the money the authorities provide to cover the fees of the poorest students is not nearly sufficient. The local clinic, says one of its nurses, does not receive enough vitamins to hand out to pregnant mothers and children, as it is meant to do under a national health programme. There are government credit schemes to help poor farmers, but only the well-connected ever seem to benefit from them. Many villages on the island have no road access, or electricity connection, or safe water supply. Nor is there any sign of improvement, villagers gripe. Things were better, they say, in Mr Suharto's day. It is much the same story throughout West Nusa Tenggara, which the United Nations Development Programme rates as the least developed province in Indonesia.
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