Acehnese civil servants not yet ready to work
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."