Aceh reconstruction body aims to boost

The Jakarta Post, JAKARTA | Sat, 01/31/2009 9:21 AM  

The Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) has allocated part of Rp 168 billion (US$14 million) from a trust fund raised by private donors to a grassroots economy empowerment program in Gayo Lues, an area unharmed by the 2004 tsunami. 

The Reconstruction Aceh-Nias Trust Fund (RANTF), a special unit of the post-tsunami reconstruction body, have built a micro-hydro power plant in the Puteri Betung village. The plant is urgently required in six Gayo Lues villages, where local economies are desperately in need of stimulation, RANTF executive director Nazmiyah Sayuti told a media conference in Jakarta on Friday. 

“This is an environmentally-friendly project which involves the active participation of locals, especially women,” Nazmiyah said. 

The plant will also discourage local people from cutting down trees in the Mount Leuser National Park conservatory. 

State electricity company PLN failed to reach remote villages which are located near the conservation forest. 

RANTF wraps up its work Saturday having distributed funds for infrastructure projects such as schools, housing complexes and hospitals. 

Nazmiyah said the power-plant project would be managed by locals under a kampung-run business, so sustainability was not an issue. 

She said local people had helped build the plant and therefore were entitled to the facility as “rightful owners”. 

With the departure of the RANTF imminent, the Institute for People-Friendly Economies (IBEKA), which assisted RANTF with the project, will continue to guide locals over the next five years to ensure they can independently manage the plant. 

IBEKA executive director Tri Mumpuni Iskandar said the facility would provide a considerable amount of income to the Puteri Beliung village. 

“The plant will supply electricity to five neighboring villages, with each family paying around Rp 100,000 per month. In total, around Rp 125 million per month will be generated from this plant.” 

Aside from the direct income, electricity is expected to also boost productivity in small-scale businesses, especially in the dried candlenuts, dried cocoa and distilled patchouli industries.

“It took the home industry days to process these products, but it now only requires a few hours,” Tri Mumpuni said. 

Nazmiyah said the project would serve as a model of development for the rest of the country.

Despite positive projections for the area, locals have expressed concern the local government will take control of the plant. 

“We do not want the regent to take the power plant away from us,” Syamsudin Lubis, a villager currently working at the facility, said. 

Village development programs have been providing funding for projects in areas such as Papua and Aceh, which enjoy special autonomy status, for several years. (dis)