Flood victims complain aid suspicions

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra

Hundreds of flood victims in Bahorok claimed on Saturday that the disbursement of aid from the government had been marked by irregularities.

Indra Hasyim, 41, one of the victims of the flash flood that swept through the area last year, said that the irregularities were first noticed in the list of people entitled to receive aid.

And while many victims of the flood have received aid, the amounts involved were less than stipulated on the list drawn up by government officials, he said.

Hasyim said that the irregularities proved that the government was not serious in monitoring and overseeing the disbursement of aid to the victims.

The government had also failed to alleviate the plight of the victims as it had not yet rebuilt their houses and markets as it had promised.

"We demand that the government does not play around with the aid that is supposed to be ours," Hasyim told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a seminar held in Medan titled "The Development of Bahorok after the Flash Flood".

The two-day seminar was attended by hundreds of participants, including environmental activists, the victims of the flash flood and government officials.

Similar complaints were voiced by another victim, Aca Alamsyah, 38, who said that he was supposed to receive Rp 1 million in aid, but had only got Rp 500,000.

Aca said he had become aware that something was amiss after he read the list of aid recipients reported by the Bahorok district head to the Langkat regent recently.

Aca was surprised to read that he was supposed to receive Rp 1 million.

"This is clearly a crime," he complained.

He said that he and the other victims had reported the irregularities to the Langkat Police two weeks ago, but there had been no news so far about what had happened.

Aca said that from the very beginning he had suspected that there was something fishy afoot in the distribution of the aid.

"We were asked to write our names and sign a blank piece of paper as evidence that we had received the aid. We did not know how much we were supposed to receive from the government," he said, adding that the entire process had been suspicious from the very start.

He estimated that out of a total of 720 flood victims who are supposed to receive aid, half of them knew nothing about how much they were supposed to get from the government.

Separately, the secretary of Langkat regency, Masri Zein, said that the sums of money involved might have come from third parties, and not from the government.

A total of Rp 670 million had been donated by third parties, he said without going into details.

He supported the move by the flood victims to report the shortfalls in the aid they had received to the police. "This is an age of transparency. If irregularities are committed by government officials, feel free to report it to the police," he said.

Meanwhile, responding to criticism that the government was very slow in rebuilding houses in the area, Masri said that the government needed enough time to prepare a proper reconstruction plan before actually starting the work.

"It takes at least three months to formulate such a plan," he said.

Besides, the Langkat government had to wait until the central government disbursed Rp 50 billion that had been promised for reconstruction. "We don't have enough money. That's why we have to wait for money from the central government," Masri said.

The flash flood hit a residential area in the Bahorok tourist resort, Langkat regency, in November last year, killing 157 people. Some 80 others are still missing, presumed dead.

The flash flood, the biggest in the area for 25 years, destroyed 450 houses and a number of hotels in the area.