Ridwan Max Sijabat and Nani Afrida, Pematang Siantar – An alliance of non-governmental organizations has asked President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to replace senior officials at the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR).
Aceh's Anticorruption Movement (Gerak), the Aceh Forum for NGOs, the Aceh Transparency Society and Greenomics Indonesia said in a joint media conference in Banda Aceh, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, on Monday that the President should immediately replace Kuntoro Mangkusubroto as chairman of the agency because of his and the agency's poor performance.
They said the President needed to appoint a new, qualified official to improve the agency's bad performance and to allow it to reach its target by 2009.
"Kuntoro's leadership is not effective and BRR's 2009 target will not be achieved if he remains in power and his staff in the agency is maintained," said Gerak coordinator Akhiruddin, while citing the results of an investigation conducted by the alliance.
The Forum for 69 NGOs in Aceh said it was disappointed by the alleged financial leakages, the BRR's security budget and the slow pace of reconstruction work, while a huge number of internally displaced people were yet to be given houses.
Secretary general for the Forum for Aceh NGOs Wiratmadinata questioned BRR's 2006 spending of Rp 6 billion (US$664,267) for Kuntoro's bodyguards, the procurement by BRR of a number of handguns and rifles for the local police, the allocation of a security budget for the local military and graft cases in BRR's development projects.
"BRR was founded not to nourish military personnel, but to rehabilitate all assets damaged during 2004's devastating earthquake and tsunami and construct houses for displaced victims," he said.
Greenomics said that based on its field study, Kuntoro was unable to construct the policy needed to speed up the rehabilitation and reconstruction work and had been deceived by his own men, who occupied strategic positions in the agency.
"This is a strong indication that Kuntoro is incapable and not professional. There is no other alternative but that Kuntoro must be replaced immediately to ensure the rehabilitation and reconstruction work," said Greenomics coordinator Vanda Mutia Dewi.
Chief spokesman for BRR Mirza Keumala, however, declined to respond in detail to the NGOs' demands and allegations, and would only say that their evaluation was input that would help the agency improve its performance over the next three years.
He said all BRR spending in the past two years had been in line with its annual budget, which was approved by the central government and the House of Representatives.
"The BRR is open for public criticism and constructive input to improve its performance," he said, adding that the BRR was audited by the Supreme Audit Agency annually.
The agency recently admitted to mismanagement in the spending of its annual budget and said it was running short of qualified human resources to do reconstruction work.
So far, it has constructed 57,000 of 130,000 of the houses targeted for completion by 2009 and land appropriation has hindered reconstruction work.
In the 2005 fiscal year, it spent only 60 percent of its Rp 5 trillion budget and in 2006, it did the same with its Rp 11 trillion budget. The graft allegations are currently before the Banda Aceh District Court.