October 18, 2006	Wednesday	Ramazan 24, 1427

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ISLAMABAD Oct, 17: Speakers at a seminar here on Tuesday called for decentralisation and demilitarisation of reconstruction efforts and greater involvement of local population and civil society organizations in the rehabilitation process going on in the quake-hit areas.

The seminar on “The impact of government and NGOs efforts in earthquake relief and reconstruction programmes” was arranged by Pattan Development Organisation on the launch of its report based on the preliminary findings of a socio-economic survey of the quake-affected areas.

The speakers included representatives of the local and international civil society organizations, United Nations bodies, local governments and affected people.

The participants were unanimous that the highly-centralised and bureaucratic mechanisms and processes set in place to aid the quake victims by the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) had only compounded the miseries of the victims and slowed the pace of reconstruction and rehabilitation process.

The speakers expressed their concern over the efforts to systematically marginalize provincial and local governments, elected representatives and civil administration from decision- making pertaining to reconstruction and recovery.

Sarwar Bari of Pattan said a large number of genuine victims had yet to get compensation and there was evidence that compensation cheques had been issued to influential and well- connected people.

“A probe into compensation frauds may just be the right move by the government in order to streamline its future disbursements,” he added.

From the issues of having their compensation application processed to opening a bank account, he said, the entire exercise was exhausting, painstaking and money consuming, as people had to travel long distances to approach the designated government offices.

Mr Bari said a large proportion of people had yet to get the second instalment only because they had not been able to meet the design rules which were homogeneous for urban centres and villages tucked in the higher mountain valleys.

“This essentially is because of the fact that the local conditions had not been studied by the policy-makers and local people were not involved in the development of processes and systems,” he said.

He urged the government to subsidise labour and construction costs, as currently the prices had gone so high that they were deterring people to rebuild their houses.

In the absence of female staff, particularly in the government agencies, a bulk of reconstruction and recovery measures were gender blind just as they were insensitive to women in the delivery of relief, he said.

Muddassir Shah of Actionaid said that people were criticizing Erra due to its flawed policies. He said people were critical of army as Erra affairs were being handled by army.

Khalil Gardezi, a quake victim from Muzaffarabad, alleged that corruption was rampant in the calamity-hit areas. He regretted that there was no planning for providing employment to the people in these areas.

He also criticized Erra for not allowing others to do work in these areas. “If Erra cannot do better things, it should not stop others from doing so,” he added.