SBY orders review of relief agency
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Citing the lack of coordination and poor management in handling emergency relief operations for tsunami victims in Aceh, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the reorganization of the National Coordinating Agency for Disaster Relief and Refugees (Bakornas PBP) led by Vice President Jusuf Kalla.
In a limited Cabinet meeting on Sunday, the President highlighted the poor coordination among the state agencies involved in the Bakornas PBP, which he said was hampering aid distribution in tsunami-affected areas across Aceh and North Sumatra.
"We have been ordered to identify the weak links in the chain of relief operation management and to improve the organization of Bakornas in order to speed up humanitarian operations in Aceh," Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab said after the Cabinet meeting.
He said President Susilo ordered Kalla, as the Bakornas PBP chairman, to lead a technical Cabinet meeting to discuss the issue.
Susilo wants to see the national disaster relief agency begin improving its coordination and organization by Tuesday, according to Alwi.
"The President has called for the speeding up of the cleanup and the removal of corpses, and improvement in the coordination from the President down to everybody in the field to ensure nobody strays off schedule," Alwi said.
Susilo issued the order after visiting Nias island in North Sumatra last week, which was among the areas affected by the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami.
The situation on the island, where the relief operation has been coordinated by Susilo aide and Cabinet Secretary Sudi Silalahi, is improving much more rapidly than in Aceh, which suffered much greater damage in the tragedy.
The disaster's overall death toll rose to more than 168,000 on Sunday with another 4,741 deaths reported in the town of Calang on the west coast of Aceh, taking Indonesia's total casualties to 114,978.
Susilo issued a press statement last Friday criticizing the poor coordination of Bakornas PBP under Jusuf Kalla, which he said had significantly hindered relief work in Aceh.
This appears to be another point of contention between the President and his deputy, after Kalla allegedly went beyond his authority last week by issuing an instruction on the establishment of a national team to handle emergency relief operations in Aceh.
State Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra said the instruction issued by Kalla was "unconstitutional" because the President, not the Vice President, had authority to issue such orders.
However, Susilo did not specifically recommend the replacement of Kalla as the Bakornas chief.
After a separate meeting chaired by Kalla later on Sunday, ministers and top officials said some lower-level Bakornas officers might be replaced to improve coordination and aid distribution.
The President also reiterated that the much disputed "deadline" of three months for foreign troops to leave Aceh was a "time line, not a deadline".
Defense minister Juwono Sudarsono said he told visiting U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on Sunday that March 26 was "a benchmark after which all, if not most, of the efforts to alleviate the disaster in Aceh would be largely in our hands, and foreign troops involved in the relief operations will be significantly reduced".