Venidora Oliveira – Member of Parliament MP Arao Noe said many village offices established across the 13 municipalities of Timor-Leste that are damaged are still waiting for the government to fix them.
MP Noe gave the example of the capital Dili municipality where many village and sub-village offices are damaged and also in other municipalities particularly in remote areas and that the onus in on the government to rehabilitate them so that they can run effectively.
"Some offices are showing signs of damages and cannot be used to run activities. Theses will gradually get worse and municipality administrators must look after the village offices," said MP Noe at the National Parliament.
He added though that village chiefs should also have own initiative to submit proposals to the government if they notice damages to their village offices.
"Village chiefs have to have plans and send proposal to the municipal administrators who will then be able to pass on the information to the Ministry of State Administration so it can allocate funds," said MP Noe.
Vice Minister for State Administration Tomas do Rosario Cabral said the ministry intends to fix villages offices but does not have sufficient funds. "He don't have enough funds because the funds allocated to this purposed for the Ministry of State Administration were only $35.000," said Vice Minister Cabral.
The Vice Minister added the budget allocation for the National Program for Village Development (PNDS) was insufficient to rehabilitate village offices because the funds are for basic infrastructure development.
However the Vice Minister said also that rehabilitation of village offices will be able to be done in 2017 through the District Development Program (PDD). "The village offices can only be rehabilitated through the PDD but this will only take place in 2017," said Vice Minister Cabral.