Indonesia asks for faster contribution to rebuild quake-hit areas
www.chinaview.cn 2006-06-14 17:31:08

    JAKARTA, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia targeted to conclude relief efforts in quake-hit Yogyakarta and Central Java province in one year and donor countries had better make faster contribution to ensure the schedule, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said here on Wednesday.

    "I say to the ministers we should complete it within one year, not four years," said Kalla in front of the delegates of the member countries attending the 15th annual meeting of Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI). "Because you can live in tents no more than three months," He added.

    If the rebuilding took longer, it would need more cost that could burden the state budget, Kalla told the delegates who had already seen the damages caused by the 5.9 Ritcher scale quake on May 27. The quake killed more than 5,800 people and made more than1.5 million others homeless and live in tents.

    "That way you directly see the situation. I think (you) can give the people more hope for the future of our people," he said, adding that Indonesia had already received 2.5 million U.S. dollars grant for the salvation work.

    To reduce the cost of the reconstruction, Kalla said the government would rebuild people's houses directly rather than put them on barrack like that in Aceh province, as the number of the population in the zones was also huge.

    The government planned to provide up to 30 million rupiahs (about 30,000 U.S. dollars) in cash to each family whose house was destroyed by the quake. The price could vary according to the seriousness of the house's damage.

    The catastrophe on May 27 injured more than 40,000 people. Morethan 300,000 houses and school buildings collapsed.

    The CGI is a country-level group of creditor countries and multilateral agencies that hold annual meetings to find agreement on development aid in the forms of loans and grants for Indonesia following an assessment of the country's economic progress and financing needs. Enditem

Editor: Yang Li
E-mail Us  
Related Stories