Acehnese in land document rush<\/p>\n
Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh<\/p>\n
Rudy, a Banda Aceh resident, breathes a sigh of relief. He has
\njust acquired a document that substitutes for his land title
\ncertificate that was lost as a result of the tsunami on Dec. 26
\nlast year. For Rudy, the substitute land title certificate is
\nvery important, as it is all his family has left. The family's
\nhouse was leveled by the disaster.<\/p>\n
\"The land is the only part of our family's legacy that is
\nleft. I have lost my parents, so now I have to take care of their
\nlands by myself,\" said 33-year-old Rudy.<\/p>\n
Rudy says he did not experience any difficulties in obtaining
\nthe substitute land title certificate from the local office of
\nthe National Land Agency (BPN). The only thing that annoyed him
\nwere the long queues, as many other people were in the same
\nsituation as Rudy.<\/p>\n
Rudy explained that in order to get the substitute
\ncertificate, he had to show BPN officials the exact location of
\nhis land. The official saves the data in the computer system, and
\nthen takes Rudy's phone number. \"The BPN official will call me
\nwhen they are ready to survey the land in my neighborhood.\" Rudy
\nsaid that he had not spent a single penny to have his claim
\nprocessed.<\/p>\n
Rudy is not alone. Razali Yahya, head of Aceh's BPN office,
\nsaid that to date almost 2,500 Banda Aceh residents had reported
\nthe loss of their land title certificates.<\/p>\n
The problem is particularly complex because the BPN office was
\nalso devastated by the tsunami, and many land ownership documents
\nkept in the office were destroyed or severely water damaged.<\/p>\n
In order to save important documents, BPN officials recently
\ntransported some 60,000 damaged land certificates to Jakarta. In
\nJakarta, the certificates will be restored and preserved.<\/p>\n
Similar measures will also be taken for land documents that
\nwere water damaged in the west coast city of Meulaboh.<\/p>\n
\"There are many certificates that got stuck together after
\ngetting wet from the tsunami. BPN's Jakarta office has techniques
\nto restore the documents,\" said Razali.<\/p>\n
He said that BPN in Jakarta was now working with a Japanese
\nnon-governmental organization in order to make the preservation
\nefforts a success. He said that the Banda Aceh office has been
\nassisted by the Office of the Coordinating Minister for People's
\nWelfare, which provided a Hercules transport aircraft, allowing
\nBPN to move nine tons of land title documents to Jakarta. The
\n60,000 documents represent 90 percent of all land documents that
\ncould be saved after the tsunami disaster. The other 10 percent
\nhave been totally destroyed or gone missing, meaning the office
\nwill have to produce new land title documents.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/acehnese-in-land-document-rush-1447893297",
"image": ""
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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