Lombok Regents Urge Temporary Shelter Development as Rainy Season Nears
Jakarta, MINA – Three regents in Lombok have requested that the central government to construct the temporary shelters for disaster victims in the districts to face the rainy season which is predicted to come soon.
The three district heads who submitted the requests were East Lombok Regent Sukiman Azmy, North Lombok Regent Najmul Akhyar, and West Lombok Regent Fauzan Khalid.
They expressed their aspirations in a discussion forum themed ‘Building the Commitment to Accelerate the Aid and Rehabilitation of the Lombok Earthquake Disaster’ at the Alumni Corps of Islamic Students Association (KAHMI) Center in South Jakarta.
Until now, the affected residents still live in emergency tents set up by volunteers. The District Heads are concerned about their health.
“If the rain comes, there will be puddles of water that will cause various diseases,” said North Lombok Regent /
The same opinion with the head district of North Lombok, Sukiman said, “Now the rainy season will come, houses, schools, offices, have been destroyed so that there is no protection. We ask for flexibility and authority to build our house, our temporary home.”
The government indeed offered the choice of the Simple Instant Home (RISHA) anti-earthquake house. However, the District Heads feel that the development of this type of house requires much enough time and money that is quite expensive.
In addition, a lack of understanding of communities about the government’s intentions causes the public opinion of RISHA was the only option they knew. It causes a price increase of materials needed to build this earthquake-resistant house.
Actually, the construction of a temporary shelter is efficient and not requiring too many funds. It is just around 15 million rupiah compares with the construction of RISHA which is set at 50 million rupiahs per unit.
The plan of RISHA development will be handed over to the residents themselves with assistance from the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR). A total of 400 CPNS divided into 54 teams will be deployed to Lombok to ensure the construction of this earthquake resistant house goes according to target.
Meanwhile, a number of savings accounts that have been shared by the government to residents in Lombok but they apparently cannot be disbursed due to complicated bureaucratic chain problems between the central and regional governments.
The number of victims who died has reached 563, most of them from North Lombok with 477 victims and for public facilities, the most severe damage occurred in the school building which reached 1,194 units. (TL/ SJ/RS5)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
