WB mission to visit East Timor this week<\/p>\n
DARWIN, Australia (AFP): A World Bank mission will travel to
\nEast Timor this week to evaluate the costs of rebuilding the
\ndevastated territory, starting from what resistance leaders call
\n\"below ground zero.\"<\/p>\n
The team will arrive in Darwin, northern Australia, on Tuesday
\nwhere it will meet an East Timorese contingent led by Mario
\nCarrascalao, a former governor of East Timor under Indonesian
\nrule.<\/p>\n
The mission is a first step in the arduous task of rebuilding
\na territory whose basic infrastructure was virtually obliterated
\nin the wave of violence in September that followed East Timor's
\nvote for independence.<\/p>\n
\"The houses have all been destroyed, the administration
\nbuildings destroyed, there are no telecoms, water supply or
\nelectricity,\" Carrascalao told AFP.<\/p>\n
Carrascalao, who served as governor from 1982 to 1992 under
\nthe Soeharto regime, was also appointed a member of the seven
\nperson Transitional Commission headed by East Timorese resistance
\nXanana Gusmao that will work with a transitional United Nations
\nadministration which will run the territory before full
\nindependence.<\/p>\n
The commission, whose composition was announced on Friday, has
\nsaid the escudo of former colonial ruler Portugal will be the
\nofficial currency, though Carrascalao said there would be no
\ndrastic measures to take the Indonesian rupiah out of
\ncirculation.<\/p>\n
The World Bank mission will assess both the economic and
\nhumanitarian needs of the country's 800,000 people, including
\nsome 250,000 refugees who have not yet returned to their burned
\nand destroyed homes.<\/p>\n
The task will be enormous, say resistance leaders.<\/p>\n
\"After the independence vote, we were planning to start above
\nground zero, but now we are starting below ground zero. We don't
\nknow how much it will cost,\" said Abel Guterres, a member of the
\nNational Council for East Timorese Resistance (CNRT).<\/p>\n
Guterres, who is working to ensure that East Timor will have
\ntrade unions when reconstruction begins, says hundreds of
\nthousands of workers could be involved rebuilding schools,
\nbridges, homes and government buildings.<\/p>\n
\"Everything is starting anew. We want the unions to be a part
\nof the rebuilding of East Timor,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Estimates of the cost of rebuilding during the first year
\nrange from between US$30 million and $100 million, all of which
\nEast Timor's resistance leaders say must come in aid.<\/p>\n
The results of the World Bank mission, which concludes on
\nNovember 16, will be presented to a donors' conference in
\nWashington scheduled for December.<\/p>\n
Joao Saldanha, executive director of the East Timorese Study
\nGroup think tank and a member of the CNRT team aiding the
\nmission, said the first task was to build an East Timorese
\nbureaucracy.<\/p>\n
He envisions a leaner civil service of 15,000 people, roughly
\nhalf the size of the Indonesian administration which operated
\nwith a budget of $116 million per year.<\/p>\n
\"That alone will cost a lot,\" he said.<\/p>\n
The country's builders must also recruit more professionals.
\nUnder Indonesia, between 60 and 70 percent of the teachers were
\nIndonesian, while there were only 20 East Timorese medical
\ndoctors, many of whom fled the country.<\/p>\n
Once the country starts to get back on its feet, the CNRT
\nplans to base development on agriculture and tourism, which has
\nbeen almost non existent since Indonesia annexed East Timor in
\n1976, Saldanha said.<\/p>\n
Currently the country's sole export earnings come from coffee,
\nand the plantations are suffering from neglect.<\/p>\n
Carrascalao says coffee earnings could be boosted to $50
\nmillion within a few years, and that cultivation could double to
\n100,000 hectares within 10 years.<\/p>\n
Agriculture accounts for 30 percent of gross domestic product,
\nwhich was about $200 million before the regional economic crisis
\nin 1997. The figure is equivalent to $230 in per capita income.<\/p>\n
Another big developmental challenge will be to address East
\nTimor's skewed income distribution. Currently the top 5 percent
\nof the population controls more than 80 percent of the wealth.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/wb-mission-to-visit-east-timor-this-week-1447893297",
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