Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – More than 6,000 families that fell victim to the tsunami in Aceh are living still in temporary shelters because many newly built houses were not yet equipped with proper facilities, including sanitation.

Head of the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) for Aceh and Nias, Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, said Friday hundreds of tsunami victims in Nias Island, North Sumatra were suffering the same situation.

Some tsunami survivors, he said, were reluctant to leave the shelters because they were still getting free food and medication.

In the two years since the reconstruction project was started, BRR has built some 71,000 houses for tsunami victims in Aceh and Nias – and there are more to come. "Until the end of December this year, BRR is set to complete 110,000 houses," Kuntoro said.

But he said the target might change slightly because of contractors who left before completing their task.

"In our calculation, about seven percent of local building contractors could not continue with their construction tasks (because their workers) were running away," he said.

"In the end, many housing constructions have been neglected – but we have reported those construction workers to the police."

Kuntoro said he was ashamed of the unfinished work because most funds allocated for rehabilitation and reconstruction works came from international donations.

"There was US$7 million in foreign cash assistance promised to rebuild Aceh and Nias, but only 75 percent of these funds are available and 60 percent of that money has been used up."

Kuntoro was in Medan to open a United Nations (UN) team meeting for the Aceh-Nias rehabilitation and reconstruction projects. He said the meeting was intended to evaluate the UN's performance over their two years in Aceh and Nias.

The meeting was also intended to prepare a strategy to assist BRR with ongoing work until April 2009, he said.

Based on reports, international development institutions which are grouped under the UN team have channeled $270 million from the $370 million to be distributed until 2009.

North Sumatra Governor Rudolf Pardede hoped BRR would work hard to complete reconstruction works in Nias because significant progress had been made so far.

"I just came back from Nias and the city area has been reached by disaster management works but this work has not yet reached the outskirts," he said.