FOR more than two weeks, Dwi Indri, 19, has traipsed in and out of the poorer suburbs in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta. She has knocked on the door of every house thought to be the home of a poor family.

Dwi, along with 194,000 census collectors from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), is currently calculating the number of poor people in the country. Meanwhile, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono awaits the results, which is costing the s