Nias Online

ADB has signed agreements with five international organizations to accelerate its program to build houses in earthquake and tsunami affected Aceh and Nias.

Housing remains a top priority for the international community and the Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi (BRR), the Government agency coordinating the overall reconstruction program, following the December 2004 tsunami disaster and the March 2005 earthquake. The five agreements will involve the construction of about 2,700 new houses and rehabilitation of 900, to be completed by September 2007. Full story …

Adisti Sukma Sawitri, The Jakarta Post, Depok

NGO activists are treating reconstruction projects as “battlefields” to compete for donor funding and misuse it for their own benefit, leaving locals to fend for themselves, a top UN officer says.

“It is common for me to see them benefit from disaster recovery projects: Another project, another new flashy car for each of them,” the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Puji Pujiono, said Wednesday in his keynote speech at a disaster management workshop for activists in Depok, West Java.

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International institutions may laud the BRR Aceh-Nias performance (read this news), but in Nias, BRR has started losing people’s support, according to SIB newspaper report (16/08/06). The way BRR handles various projects where many were not finalised according to the ones set on paper has disappointed Nias people. This was pointed out by Fotarisman Zalukhu, the General secretary of Care Nias Society (CNS) in a discussion held recently Medan.

Zalukhu said BRR now is being viewed as being elitist and does not seem to “absorb” the local people’s aspiration. This has created a bad image of BRR among Nias people who view BRR as an institution who took advantage of Nias recent disasters to waste money channeled to Nias.

Beside losing psychological support of Nias people, BRR has also lost a momentum for its Reconstruction and Rehabilitation programme. Post disaster construction process should have been used by BRR to boost Nias people enthusiasm in rebulding their region. What has happened so far has been a merely physical reconstruction at a very slow pace.

Progress report released by BRR to public is far from a report on long term empowerment of Nias people. Instead of waiting fund from BRR, many Nias people are now trying to rebuild their own life using their own limited recources.

According to Zalukhu, if not improved and corrected continusoly, the current BRR program in Nias will become a time bomb to Nias people. When BRR finishes its term in Nias, the people will be left and dealt with with the impacts of the unfinished BRR programme.

Following the successful completion of 520 shelters on the island of Nias, which had been affected by the 28th of March 2005 earthquake, ACTED is now moving on to a new school rehabilitation project in Onozalukhu, a village in the north of the island. Full story …

Friday, July 14, 2006

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The European Union and the World Bank praised Thursday progress in the reconstruction of tsunami-hit Aceh, terming it superior to disaster recovery efforts in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Top officials from the EU and the World Bank said that despite massive logistical problems, the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) managed to deliver much-needed basic facilities for the survivors of the December 2004 disaster as well as an earthquake in Nias in March 2005.

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Wednesday, July 12, 2006

JAKARTA: The Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) should openly clarify its recent decision to dismiss employees Leo Nugroho and Endang Yuliarti, non-governmental organizations said here Tuesday.

“The dismissals signal irregularities inside the BRR,” Jakarta Legal Aid Institute director Uli Parulian said at a joint news conference with Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) and the Aceh Working Group (AWG).

The BRR fired Leo and Endang in April, citing allegations of misconduct, just days after Leo reported alleged rampant corruption at the agency.

“I was not given a chance to defend myself against the dismissal,” Leo said.

He said he would file a lawsuit with the State Administrative Court to reverse the dismissals. (Jakarta Post)