ISLAMABAD, Oct 4: About 1.8 million survivors of last year’s earthquake will be forced to spend another difficult winter in transitional shelters because of patchy progress of recovery and slow construction of housing and infrastructure, aid agency Oxfam said in a report released on Wednesday.

Corruption by officials was compounding the miseries of the survivors, it said.

“Several instances have come to our notice wherein local officials verifying land ownership documents have been involved in corruption and the situation is serious enough for the government and humanitarian community to take action,” Oxfam Country Representative Farhana Farouqi Stocker told a press briefing.

Revenue officers had been found charging inflated fees for issuing essential documents, she said.

She said besides local officials landlords were reportedly demanding up to a 50 per cent share of the official shelter compensation before signing the agreement that a tenant needed to receive the cash.

The Oxfam representative called upon the government and the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority to be transparent and accountable in their projects and reconstruction activities not only to the donors but also to the survivors.

The report also speaks about the extremist organisations exploiting the situation for their ideological interests.

Ms Stocker said although it was normal for faith-based organisations to get involved in relief and recovery efforts in any disaster, there were concerns about their political agenda and connections with militants.

Organisations with suspected links to illegal armed groups, the report says, have gained influence through management of camps, schools and health facilities.

Certain groups and influential local figures have occasionally organised protests, tried to influence public opinion and issued warnings to humanitarian agencies to leave or face violent ejection, it says.

Attempts to prevent the employment of women in reconstruction activities, including sporadic threats against NGOs who hire them, are also sources of concern, the report says.

Ms Stocker criticised Erra for not involving the local authorities in decision making and implementation process as she called for properly consulting local authorities and their greater involvement in decision making for the sake of sustainability of efforts.

In this regard, the report says a combination of strong centralised policy-making, lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities and new, under-resourced structures sometimes cause tensions among Erra, the provincial and state governments and public services departments. Meanwhile, local authorities are concerned about how much input they have into strategy, their access to resources and technical support and to what degree their mandates are being challenged.

Ms Stocker urged the government and the humanitarian community to mount an urgent effort to keep 1.8 million vulnerable survivors alive, warm and well this winter, which, she said, was expected to be much severe than the last one.

She cautioned that the time available was short with snow now falling in the mountains earlier than expected.

Quoting authorities, the report states that only 17 per cent of the 450,000 affected households have begun building permanent homes. Oxfam estimates at least 80 per cent of the remaining families, equivalent to 1.8 million people, are still living in temporary shelters with the rest staying with friends and relatives. Over 40,000 people are known to be in tents in official camps.

Thousands of others are believed to be in unofficial camps and tents close to their home villages.

A recent Oxfam survey of 17 earthquake-hit villages found that virtually all those living in tents lacked adequate protection against winter.