Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – A majority of Acehnese people no longer believe in the effectiveness of the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) and are calling for its chief to step down, a new survey has found.
The survey was conducted by Greenomics Indonesia in March and timed with the second anniversary of the government-backed reconstruction agency.
It found that only 6.8 percent of the 1,475 respondents – ranging from local elites to 2004 tsunami victims – were optimistic of the agency's success, while the rest said they either distrust the agency or lacked hope it could do its job.
Greenomics said that judging by the results, BRR chief Kuntoro Mangkusubroto should step down.
"If I were Kuntoro, I would step down and take my suitcase back to Jakarta because of the disappointment of both the local elites and disaster victims in Aceh," Greenomics Executive Director Elfian Effendi told The Jakarta Post over the weekend. "Quitting BRR would be a laudable decision. The five deputies should also take account for the slow reconstruction work."
The survey found that 94 percent of respondents were disappointed with BRR's main programs, which centered on providing basic supplies to victims, building houses, developing infrastructure and motivating Aceh's economy.
Greenomics called on the new Aceh provincial administration and other stakeholders to take concrete measures to revamp BRR in order to finalize reconstruction work by 2009.
The reconstruction agency questioned the validity of the Greenomics survey, calling it scientifically unaccountable. The agency said the NGO made no mention of samples required to reach such conclusions.
"I would appreciate Greenomics's (survey) if it was based on standard academic methodology and findings in the field," chief spokesman for BRR, Mirza Keumala, told the Post.
Referring to the result of a similar survey conducted by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), Mirza maintained that BRR had made notable progress in its rehabilitation and reconstruction program over the past two years.
"The LSI survey found last December that 60 percent of the respondents appreciated the reconstruction work positively. So, what is wrong with us? It is unfair to under-evaluate BRR's performance as the five-year reconstruction work is still ongoing.
"It is not fair to say that BRR is not doing well after we constructed 57,000 houses, 623 schools and repaired 1,200 kilometers of damaged roads, as well as five seaports, within two years," he said, adding that BRR aimed to construct 120,000 houses in the five years.
"We have also trained more than 5,000 school teachers and repaired 305 public health centers."
The agency has also handed over 17,400 land certificates to land owners and measured 134,300 plots of lands damaged by the tsunami.
Mirza urged the government to issue a regulation on land clearance to allow BRR to speed up reconstruction efforts, and also have Aceh's provincial agrarian office issue land certificates to disaster victims.