Bureaucracy, graft hamper Thai tsunami recovery

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Ban Nam Khem, March 25: For Suriwan Mankong and her family, the three months since the tsunami have been an endless slog of form-filling and fighting for state aid, but what help has arrived has got them back on their feet.

Others in the Thai coastal village of Ban Nam Khem, a fishing community of around 10,000 that was swept away by the December 26 killer waves, have not been so fortunate.

“There have been so many papers to fill in and so many people who have filed for compensation,” said Suriwan, a 21-year-old student who lost three aunts, several friends and a half-finished two-storey, family home in the disaster.

“A lot of money is involved and there are many opportunists who fabricate documents to take advantage of this. So officials say they must take time to verify the claims,” said Suriwan, who survived by clinging to a coconut tree for 30 minutes. She and her family then spent several weeks in a “tent city” set up by the government to provide emergency shelter for tsunami survivors.

Since their house was not completely destroyed, her family was not eligible for the 700 houses and shops being built for survivors by the army.

Instead, they received 20,000 baht ($500) of bricks to finish their roofless two-storey house, a debt moratorium from a state bank on their home loan, and a further 20,000 baht to fix their severely damaged two million baht trawler. The money was just enough for her father to rent a boat from a friend to go shrimp fishing, but rising fuel prices have meant some of his trips lost him money, Suriwan said.

For others, going back to the water and work has not been so easy. Several shallow-water fishermen have not been to sea because the aid packages were not enough to mend their wrecked boats.

In some cases, compensation claims -- which villagers said were carried out under unclear criteria -- were axed by 30% because officials said they were filed late or because boats were not properly registered in the first place.

“It is an unfair system,” said 46-year-old Songpong Panchor, who moved to Ban Nam Khem six years ago, adding that some people who never owned a boat had also received compensation. “After my 30% reduction, I had just enough to pay the boat-fixing fees and then 60 baht ($1.5) to pay for wood for the boat,” he said.