Indonesia Sets Up Fund For International Donors

Brudirect.com, Written by Sally Pin, Monday, 05 October 2009 05:47

Bandar Seri Begawan - The Indonesian government has set up an account to accommodate humanitarian relief fund from international communities, in a bid to help rebuild infrastructure in the affected areas after the 7.6 magnitude earthquake devastated the West Sumatra Province last Wednesday.

"The Minister of Finance has specially prepared an account to be used as the avenue for humanitarian relief fund from foreign countries," said Husain Abdullah, press officer of the Indonesian Vice President Office in Jakarta yesterday.

Though President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has recommended not asking humanitarian funds from the international community, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said over the weekend that if there was any country that would like to contribute it, the government had opened an account to accommodate the assistance.

Resembling Kalla's statement, Husain said that the aid could be used for the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts to help rebuilding residents' houses, public facilities such as hospitals and schools, as well as social facilities such as mosques and churches in the next few months. Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, is known in predominantly Muslim Indonesia as a staunchly devout area.

When asked what's the total amount needed for the rehabilitation projects, he said, "the regional authority and the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) were still calculating its budget estimation among others to rebuild about 35,000 damaged houses belong to local's residents," he said.

He explained that the residents whose houses were damaged will receive help in from five million rupiah (BN$736.31) to 15 million rupiah, depending on the extend of the damage. Media reported that based on the West Sumatra Disaster Management Agency data, a total of 143 school buildings and 126 government offices were also damaged by the earthquake.

During Kalla's visit to Padang over the weekend he said that so far the government has only received humanitarian help in the form of medical and evacuation team but not in cash fund. "So far Indonesia has only received commitment on humanitarian fund from foreign countries," Husain said.

Sumatra forms part of the Pacific Ocean's "Ring of Fire", a circle of violent earthquakes and volcanoes around the ocean's fringes. Sumatra is part of the 17,000 islands that stretched across the Indonesia Archipelago.

Meanwhile, ASEAN has also set up an emergency fund following tropical storm Ketsana that hit Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Philippines, and Vietnam as well as earthquakes in Indonesia. "The fund will be used to purchase relief items based on the needs of the affected populations," said a statement released by the ASEAN Secretariat recently.

All friends and partners of ASEAN are welcome to make contributions in US Dollar to the account number of 001-382019-120 at the HSBC Jakarta.

The account, which has a swift code of HSBCIDJA, is under the name of ASEAN Cooperation Fund for Emergency Relief. -- Courtesy of The Brunei Times