Government scraps Aceh Authority Board plan
Government scraps Aceh Authority Board plan
Rendi A. Witular and Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government has decided to drop its plan to set up a
special authority for Aceh since the tsunami-stricken areas in
the province already had functioning local governments, according
to Vice President Jusuf Kalla.
"The government has discussed this and decided to scrap the
plan," he told reporters on Friday.
"This kind of authority only exists in empty, underdeveloped
areas, like Batam used to be. It was an empty island back then,"
Kalla said, referring to the Batam Authority, which governs the
industrial island of Batam together with the local
administration.
The plan to set up the Aceh Authority came at the suggestion
of the House of Representatives during a meeting with President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the aftermath of the Dec. 26 tsunami
disaster.
The authority was supposed to oversee the rehabilitation and
reconstruction work in Aceh and would have been directly
responsible to the President.
The plan also came as Susilo openly criticized the poor
handling of emergency relief operations in Aceh, citing a lack of
coordination, a criticism that raised speculation about a rift
between Susilo and Kalla as the latter is also the chairman of
the National Disaster Management and Refugee Coordination Board
(Bakornas PBP), which oversees the relief work.
Presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng told the press
earlier this week that the authority was expected to start
functioning on March 26 as the government was still discussing
the structure of the organization. Andi said that the members of
the authority would include both formal and informal Acehnese
leaders to help ensure that the reconstruction of Aceh would be
in line with local values and culture.
According to Kalla, Aceh already had an administration and
therefore it did not need a new authority to govern the province.
It only needed an organizing body that would fit in with the
existing rules.
"Therefore, it is not feasible for Aceh to be governed by such
an authority," Kalla said.
He added that currently the government was still considering
the best ways of rebuilding infrastructure in the province. The
reconstruction effort would be need to maximize local resources
in Aceh so that the country would not become overly dependent on
foreign aid.
Nearly two months after the Indian Ocean tsunami ravaged many
parts of oil-and-gas-rich Aceh province, the government said that
the emergency in the affect areas was nearly over and that the
government and foreign agencies working in the region had
commenced the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase.
The government is now pushing to complete the construction of
barracks for the more than 400,000 tsunami survivors.
Meanwhile, foreign volunteers and warships have started to
withdraw from the area.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier and the
first naval vessel to arrive off the coast of Aceh after the Dec.
26 disaster, departed on Friday according to AFP.
Australia was also set to withdraw up to 1,000 of its troops
from Aceh. Military contingents from Singapore and Malaysia had
previously started to withdraw their troops and equipment from
Aceh.
Meanwhile, workers cleaning up the debris left by the tsunami
found 1,108 more bodies, increasing the confirmed death toll from
the disaster to 112,279, Bakornas PBP said on Friday.