Hari Mohammad
The success of the reconstruction goes beyond economic recovery and it is important for consolidating the peace agreement of August 2005 between the Indonesian government and Acehnese rebels.
Aceh, the northern-most province of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, suffered terribly in the tsunami of December 2004. The water washed over 800 km of coastline, killing 169,000 people and leaving 600,000 homeless. In several areas, no buildings, roads, or trees were left standing. Large areas of land were permanently lost. Sumatra was then hit by an earthquake on 28 March 2005, killing almost another 1,000 people on Nias island.
Before the 2004 Asian tsunami, Aceh, despite rich in mineral resources and natural wealth, was one of Indonesia's most neglected and isolated regions. Today, it is home to the largest reconstruction project in the developing world.
Going by the trends of the historic polls of 11 December in Aceh this year Irwandi Yusuf, a former Acehnese rebel, who spent several years in jail for 'treason', is firmly placed to become the new governor of his troubled province.
But as he transforms from militant to manager there is every chance that Irwandi may end up believing that fighting a civil war was far easier than tackling the complex needs of post-tsunami Aceh.
Two years after the deadly quake and tsunami of 26 December 2004 the task of putting the survivors back on their feet or even under a proper roof is nowhere near what is required. Apart from corruption, bureaucracy and internecine squabbles between different agencies the sheer logistics of the large-scale rehabilitation exercise is proving to be a nightmare, leaving in its trail many a tale of woe.
As the donor funded reconstruction phase nears its end, Acehnese and the donors alike are grappling with a cold reality: thousands of projects in Aceh may add up to a single failure.
"We are constantly overwhelmed by the massive task confronting us," said Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, Chairman of the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR), who has spent much of the past two years in Aceh managing funds for donors and the government. "It is hard to be very optimistic," he told former US President Bill Clinton at a dinner arranged on the latter's recent visit to Aceh in his capacity as the UN's special envoy on tsunami related issues.
Soon after the disaster struck in December 2004 donors from around the world contributed to a wide range of activities, including support for the affected physical infrastructure sectors; institution-building; technical assistance; support for democracy and elections; funding for civil society; funding and in-kind assistance to the re-created Acehnese institutions; and budgetary start-up and recurrent costs for the new Acehnese administration post elections.
The total reconstruction portfolio now exceeds US$ 5.5 billion out of the expected US$ 8 billion, to be spent, by 2009, representing several hundreds of projects by more than 300 institutions. By end of October 2006, the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR), a government agency specially set up for reconstruction of the quake and tsunami affected areas, had only disbursed 22 percent of the 2006 budget.
Those inside the reconstruction programs in Aceh say poor planning and coordination by the government and donors meant that even successful individual projects failed to do the job.
For example, health centres were built at great cost, as the one on road to Meulaboh, but had no water and sewer service. Poor work site management by contractors meant that several projects went awry. And now that many donors are beginning to withdraw, despite partially completed projects, many involved with the process worry that the Acehense do not have the training or the money to keep the newly built facilities running. This was not how the rebuilding of Aceh was supposed to go.
The worst affected sector is housing. Every agency that promised thousands of houses had scaled down targets several notches down.
According to an Oxfam report on the housing and land rights situation in Aceh up to November 2006, only 48,000 houses had been built in the province, with still much to do to reach the target of 128,000 houses.
Top administration officials in Aceh province ask "What reconstruction?
"We do not have drinking water, electricity only visits us couple of hours a day. And now we are going backwards. There is no cooking gas".
Many across the province share such views. In interviews with local media, local people expressed frustration not just with the donor and Indonesian government but with Acehnese leaders, too, for pocketing aid money that was supposed to be for everyone.
There is widespread allegation that many government agencies have become energetic speculators themselves and began evicting poor people along the most tsunami-affected areas in Aceh to make way for commercial developments on the public land they occupied.
Tsunami survivors demanding houses and jobs have started protesting in front of government offices, including BRR. In September, they threw stones at police in Aceh during a protest outside the BRR office in Banda Aceh and families had blockaded the agency's vehicles moving out. Tens of thousands of people still without permanent homes have complained that the process is too slow given the enormous resources committed to the province. Protesters are growing in size, day by day, and the intensity of these protests is also growing.
"When aid came in after the tsunami, we heard the promises. But in the last two years we got nothing and our conditions have become worse," said a village leader who joined a group of protesters in front of the BRR asking for the speedy completion of housing projects in the area. "We know that large amounts of money have been dedicated to Aceh, but they all seem to have disappeared or simply stolen."
Reconstruction work in the province, where logistics and resources are scarce, has been inordinately delayed. Not that there has been a scarcity of rebuilding material, but reconstruction of houses as desired by local families has been a Herculean task.
Unfortunately, many protesters still live in wooden barracks. The pace of rebuilding process is quite slow and tardy, tales of wastage of relief material due to lack of proper information and logistics are plenty. The tsunami has yielded a new breed of contractors who, having won bids for reconstruction of roads and other infrastructure, have set their eyes on unused relief goods.
The reconstruction effort in Aceh is not only about infrastructure alone though. It is also about rebuilding institutions and fostering political reconciliation.
The August 2005 peace deal between the Indonesian government and the Acehnese rebels fighting for independence was surely a positive development in an otherwise bleak scenario.
But as those who survived the forces of raw nature two years ago now struggle to cope with the corruption and indifference of local and national elite, the prospects of bringing about long-term change for the better appear distant.
(Hari Mohammad: A development worker involved in rebuilding Aceh)