Graft robs 25,000 Maluku refugees of government aid

Graft robs 25,000 Maluku refugees of government aid

Azis Tunny and Octovianus Pinontoan, The Jakarta Post, Ambon, Maluku

More than 25,000 refugees fleeing sectarian clashes in the
province of Maluku have never received government aid said a
local councillor who claimed this was due to corruption at the
local administration level.

Head of the Maluku Provincial Legislative Council, Lucky
Wattimury said on Monday that of the 170,590 refugees in the
provincial capital of Ambon, 25,262 refugees had never seen
government aid.

This aid includes basic foodstuffs and money to buy food and
other forms of aid, he said.

"They have not been given their rights as refugees," Lucky
told The Jakarta Post.

He could not say how much money the aid amounted to, but said
that the number of people affected by the dubious shortfall was
based on field surveys.

Jakarta has set aside Rp 500 (about 5.6 U.S. cents) in food
money and 100 grams of rice every day for each of the hundreds of
thousands of refugees nationwide. That means the 25,262 refugees
should have received at least US$1,419 in food money and 252.62
kilograms in rice per day.

But that aid never reached the recipients, for which Lucky
blamed corrupt local government officials.

"According to information from the local government, there are
several officials who take personal advantage of the refugee
problem," he said.

He gave no details, saying only that Ambon Mayor M.J. Papilaja
had taken stern action against the officials.

But a different explanation on the food shortfall for the
refugees was presented by the head of Ambon's social welfare
office, M. A. Namsa.

He said the refugees did not receive aid because they were
newcomers who were not present when the government surveyed the
number of refugees in 2001.

The number of refugees in Ambon jumped from 145,328 in 2001 to
290,000 in 2002, he claimed.

But there was no explanation behind the surge in refugees
given that the level of violence in Maluku had fallen
significantly.

More than 300,000 people have fled the raging violence since a
riot in Ambon turned into an all-out war between Maluku's Muslim
and Christian communities in early 1999.

A peace accord last year helped subdue the warring groups. One
third of the refugees have now begun to return to their homes,
forced also by the government's decision to cut aid to more than
a million refugees nationwide.