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Friday, September 08, 2006
TSUNAMI. TWO YEARS ON ...
I read with much, much sadness, distress and dismay recent newspaper articles based on the latest Auditor-General Annual report on the poor management of funds and relief programmes for the 2004 tsunami victims.
Apparently, two years on since the tragedy, many of the victims are still not completely "relieved". The emotional trauma will always remain with them for as long as they live, but one would think that the millions of ringgit collected on their behalf from so many caring and generous Malaysians should have already assisted all of them to get them on their feet towards a (physically) better life.
Alas, this hasn't really happened. Based on the A-G report, some of the funds --administered by the National Disaster Relief Fund -- were misused and were inefficiently managed. The relief programmes were poorly implemented. The construction of houses for the victims, as well as the repair jobs on surviving homes, were poor and shoddy at best.
Repair and purchase of equipment for affected fishermen were mismanaged, and much of the repair jobs were not to specifications. There was even a payment for the construction of a repair workshop which was in fact never built. New boats supplied to the victims were of poor quality and had to be constantly fixed.
The A-G report also said the Fund was slow in disbursing aid to the victims, with delays of between 24 and up to 527 days. Bloody hell, 527 days? That's close to one and a half years!!
As in other fiascos in Malaysia, a Minister in the government now proposes an investigation. And, if the investigation is approved (although I'm not quite sure how useful would this be), it would take months before we get to know the reasons.
I don't know what to say. Really. I am shocked, sad, and disgusted.
I was in Langkawi when the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami struck. I missed the giant waves by mere minutes, as I had decided to have breakfast away from the beaches. But I saw the destruction first hand, both on the island and in Kuala Muda, Kedah two days later when I had to cut short my vacation to be in a team mobilised by my company to extend immediate assistance to the victims.
Our mission was simple: to distribute monetary aid to the victims as soon as possible, as we knew the money pledged to the Fund by all those corporate and other bodies would take a long, long time to reach the victims. And we wanted to do it quietly, unlike many of those "generous" Malaysians who smiled and posed with their mock cheques for the newspapers. Our intention had received the endorsement from the highest powers that be in the government.
So we identified a number of relief centres where we would disburse the money to the victims. Little did we know that we would encounter so many obstacles. The powers that be in Kedah were not very happy with what we wanted to do, but they reluctantly furnished us with the list of the families occupying one of the smaller centres. However, as we were in the process distributing the money, a top police brass came and stopped us.
The reason he gave -- no party was to give money or aid directly to the victims. Donors needed to channel aid and contributions through a central committee. Stumped, we tried for the next couple of days to accomplish our mission, as we had about RM1.5 million in cash with us. We were stopped at every turn.
Noticing that one of the centres had ran out of cooking gas one morning, we thought it would be nice to buy breakfast for the victims. So we quickly ordered 1,000 packets of breakfast and delivered the packets to the centre. And, yup, you guessed it, we were not allowed to. It would have to go through the central committee.
Next, we proposed to distribute personal hygiene packages (soap, shampoo, the likes), as we saw the victims bathing/taking shower without these necessary items. Again, we were not allowed to.
So, after three days of trying, we gave up, packed our bags and cash and headed back to KL, mentally and physically exhausted. The money eventually found its way into the account of a highly-reputable and very professional NGO that has an active role in the tsunami and other disaster relief efforts here and overseas.
Kita serik. Even in a tragic situation like this, personal glory (and gain) to a bunch of (rather useless) people and ineffective/inefficient bodies always takes precedent over the real and immediate need of the victims.
So, the lesson we learnt was: it's always smarter and more meaningful to partner with parties that know what they are and should be doing, with the passion and commitment to match.
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