The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh
Despite major progress and the huge funds at hand, the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) has been facing major hurdles in finishing reconstruction in the province, which is still recovering from a tsunami, an earthquake and a 30-year civil war.
It has said that besides the slow disbursement of funds from state budgets and donor countries, it has been running short on construction. Its officials claim major progress nonetheless, but also admit a lack of coordination with local authorities, foreign nongovernmental organizations and civil society groups, leading to perceptions of it moving at a snail's pace.
BRR Chief Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said internal and external factors have hampered the efforts of the agency and its partners to carry out such huge-scale work.
Besides lacking qualified staff, he said other constraints were land shortages, necessary regulations and pressure from various parties.
"Despite the hurdles, the BRR has already rehabilitated and reconstructed a greater part of devastated areas in Aceh and the work will be accomplished in April 2009," he said in a press conference to mark the construction of the 100,000th house here recently.
The agency has decided to deploy a community-driven approach to empower local communities and companies in reconstruction work, he added.
With a total of US$8.5 billion from state budgets and foreign donors, the BRR and its foreign and local NGOs have built 100,000 homes and handed over 116,593 land certificates, 1,500 kilometers of road, 181 bridges, 10 airports and airstrips and 17 ports.
They have also constructed more than 1,300 mosques, 140 village halls and 800 school buildings, trained almost 22,000 teaching staff and provided scholarships for 8,500 students.
In a presentation of BRR's performance at The Jakarta Post, Kuntoro cited requests from former Free Aceh Movement figures for financial help.
But Kuntoro said the BRR could not channel financial and humanitarian aid to conflict victims since this was beyond its mandate.
He acknowledged the inevitable jealousy among victims of the conflict and of the disaster, the latter of whom have received houses and revolving funds to help them get back on their feet.
He said the BRR was still setting up a transition team to transfer its assets to the provincial government on the eve of ending its mission in April 2009.
