Nani Afrida, Banda Aceh – A score of protesters gathered at the offices of the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) here Tuesday to demand money to rebuild their homes.
They accused the agency, whose mandate ends in 2009, of failing to disburse funds promised to them so they could rebuild homes destroyed by the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami. The victims said they had been waiting for three years but had yet to receive any money.
In a related development, Greenomics Indonesia criticized the BRR for seeking to revise its disaster rehabilitation master plan, part of a 2005 presidential directive.
Hanifah, a protester, said the BRR had originally promised Rp 15 million in rehabilitation funds for each home destroyed in her regency, Pidie. She said the sum had later been reduced to Rp 2.5 million. "This doesn't make sense. How can we rebuild with Rp 2.5 million with the soaring prices of construction materials?"
Yusdawati, another protester, asked why the reconstruction agency had given homes to Acehnese people who were not affected by the disaster. "Many residents of Keude Panteraja village have received houses as aid from the government although their homes were not destroyed by the tsunami."
Wisnusubroto, a BRR staff member who met with the protesters, said the amount of financial assistance for the reconstruction program was based of assessments by the BRR supervisory and steering bodies, with "informal representation" from the victims.
He said, "Two years ago, we set Rp 15 million (as the amount) for rebuilding damaged houses." However, he failed to provide further clarification.
Greenomics executive director Elfian Effendi said an attempt to amend policies guiding the reconstruction could be perceived as a BRR attempt to hide its poor performance from donor countries and the public.
Elfian said there was no good reason to change the 2005 regulation after the fact and that the move could be used to justify BRR projects that were wasteful or not related to reconstruction.
"The Aceh government and the provincial legislative council should prevent the BRR from revising the master plan, since it could be used to change (the appearance of) poor performance," he said in Jakarta on Wednesday.
According to Elfian, the master plan worked well enough from 2004 throughout 2009. He said changes in BRR performance were preferable to changes in the master plan.
Greenomics called on the Supreme Audit Agency to audit BRR's finance performance to evaluate whether rehabilitation and reconstruction work has been done in line with the master plan.
He said donor countries might also recruit an independent auditor to check the financial performance of the BRR and other Indonesian and foreign parties responsible for the reconstruction.
He said he feared the proposed review was linked to the end of the agency's mandate in 2009.
"If the regulation is revised, the BRR will have no obligation to account for its poor performance and (will simply) hand over its unfinished projects to the Aceh government."