Jakarta – The head of reconstruction in Indonesia's tsunami-devastated Aceh province defended the pace of home rebuilding for survivors on Thursday, saying it was exceeding the country's national capacity.
Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, who heads the government's BRR agency, told a news conference that 16,500 homes had been built by mid-December while 15,000 more were under construction.
"If you compare with the capacity of our own state (housing agency), per year they build 16,000 houses. What we have is more than that. I don't agree with what you are saying that it is slow," Kuntoro said in response to a question about the pace of home rebuilding.
On Dec. 26, a magnitude 9.15 earthquake – the biggest in four decades – triggered a tsunami that left up to 232,000 people dead or missing in a dozen Indian Ocean nations, including nearly 170,000 in Aceh alone. Half a million people were left homeless in Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra island. The BRR has said between 80,000-110,000 new homes were needed.
In recent interviews with Reuters in Aceh, numerous tsunami survivors expressed frustration at the pace of reconstruction and said they were sick of living in tents and wooden barracks.
In a report, the BRR said 67,500 people were still in tents, many of which were becoming mouldy, but that the aim was to get all survivors out of them by early 2006.
"Those displaced or who lost their livelihoods are understandably frustrated that a year later the recovery hasn't been faster. The pace of reconstruction following a disaster of such magnitude is never fast enough, given the lives that have been disrupted, but it is proceeding at least as rapidly as in other contemporary disasters," the report said.
Andrew Steer, country director for the World Bank in Indonesia, told reporters on Wednesday the government had to treat the rebuilding of Aceh as a top priority.
But speaking at the same news conference with Kuntoro, Steer said some of his comments the previous day, made while he was in Singapore, had been taken out of context.
"In fact the permanent housing is going very well. Like (Mr) Kuntoro said, over 30,000 houses are in the process of being built, apparently every month 5,000 houses are being built," he said.
"This is a very good performance. If this pace keeps going, everybody will be in permanent houses by the middle of 2007. This is a very remarkable achievement."
But among other comments on Wednesday, Steer had said: "We are not happy at all with the progress in Aceh. There are still over 60,000 people living in tents today, that's clearly unacceptable a year after the tsunami."
The tsunami destroyed much basic infrastructure in Aceh; thousands of kilometres (miles) of roads were ruined, seaports and airports were wiped out, and over 60,000 hectares of agricultural land were damaged.