Acehnese civil servants not yet ready to work

Fadli, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

Grief is still visible on Ibrahim Pase's face. The 47-year-old civil servant at Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam gubernatorial office lost his four children when tsunami swept the region on Dec. 26 last year.

The disaster left his wife, 40-year-old Komariah, traumatized, and they still cannot believe that they have lost their loved ones forever.

But it seems that the Aceh provincial government is failing to take Ibrahim's grief into account, requiring all civil servants to report back to work by Jan. 31 at the latest. Civil servants who fail to report back on time will be considered resigning or retired from their jobs.

"I'm really disappointed with the deadline set by the Aceh provincial administration to report back to work. All of my children were lost in the tsunami, as well as my house and belongings. We're left with only the clothes we wear and a motorcycle that my wife and I were riding to survive the disaster," Ibrahim told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday on board an Anugerah bus heading to Banda Aceh from Medan.

The Aceh gubernatorial office recommenced its activities two weeks after the disaster, with only 468 civil servants showing up at a ceremony to mark the first day back of the administration. The fate of some 900 of their colleagues, or almost two thirds of Aceh's civil servants, remains unknown.

Ibrahim said he had read about the Jan. 31 deadline to report back to work from newspapers and from SMS texts from surviving friends.

"I'm very disappointed the government did not give any dispensations and extend the deadline to report back to work," Ibrahim said.

He has been working as a civil servant in the provincial administration for 25 years, and he felt sad that his service was not taken into account, especially at a time when he had lost everything.

"My house in Lambada (in Banda Aceh) is now only ruins. My wife and I survived because at the time of the disaster we were somewhere in the Blang Bintang area (Sultan Iskandar Muda Airport) on business," he said.

Upon realizing the disaster, he immediately searched for his children, but could not find any of them.

"On Dec. 29 we decided to go to Medan to ask for help from our relatives," said Ibrahim as he hugged his wife, who said nothing and just stared out of the bus.

Ibrahim was on his way back to Banda Aceh to meet the imposed deadline, and avoid losing his civil servant status.

He had contacted the secretary of the employee affairs section to inform the office of his whereabouts, but he was told that he had to turn up in person.

"That's why I'm rushing back to Banda Aceh to avoid receiving a sanction, which in my opinion is inhumane. Mentally, I'm not ready to go back to Aceh, and neither is my wife, because it will remind us of our children who are now gone," sighed Ibrahim.

On the same bus, which took 12 hours to reach Banda Aceh from Medan, another civil servant, Saiful, was returning to his hometown for the same reason, to report back to work at the provincial administration office.

He wondered why the provincial government did not allow a longer time for tsunami victims to report back to work.

"It's not like we're hiding to avoid work, but in my psychological condition I'm just not ready to go back to Banda Aceh. We have nothing left."