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The Southern Suburb in Spotlight, Again
government, Fouad Siniora holds the affected people responsible for the delay in the disbursement of compensation, and while the political crisis grows, the compensation issue “bomb” exploded yesterday.
In spite of the prolonged silence of the inhabitants of the south suburb on the unprecedented delay in dealing with the destruction resulted from the Israeli aggression, Prime Minister of the unconstitutional government, Fouad Siniora, has made an «unwise» step which would reflect more hindrance in the reconstruction process. He justified the slow completion of compensation files by accusing the affected people themselves of being responsible on old legal irregularities.
He also launched a political campaign on Hezbollah and the party`s decision to support the plan of «Promise» institute to reconstruct the southern suburb. Sinora’s statements triggered negative reactions in the inhabitants of those areas, which has opened the door for a long political debate, especially that the government is determinate to block the process that governs the work flow between the majority of the affected families and “Promise” institute.
"Promise" institute will get from Hezbollah about $ 150 million as an additional compensation to complete the reconstruction of more than 250 buildings and foundations in the South Suburb.
Well-informed sources told «al-Akhabar» Newspaper that the problem had started some time ago, specifically when Saudi Arabia was notified that the money, which was provided to support the reconstruction projects, is still in a special bank account that is under the complete control of Fuad Siniora in person. That pushed the Saudi Ambassador in Beirut, Abdul Aziz Khoja, to question the Prime Minister about what had been accomplished in the reconstruction plan, and then to the political and institutional reviews with Siniora about the financial reports.
The statistics collected by the organizations working under the supervision of Siniora included about 25 thousand affected people out of 35 thousand in the Southern Suburb who are officially documented by the Ministry of the Displaced and other private auditing companies.
The reconstruction project carried out by Hezbollah has completed the reconstruction and repairing of all partially damaged buildings so far, in addition to the accommodation plan, which included more than fifty thousand families who received amounts ranging between 8 and 12 thousand dollars from Hezbollah to rent temporary residences.
Al-Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah a day earlier accused the government of failing to provide financial assistance to all the Lebanese people.
Siniora said that the Higher Relief Commission (HRC) has distributed $172 million of initial indemnity payments - via the Amal-led Council of the South - to residents of 272 villages and municipalities in South Lebanon, he said, according to a survey of 69,745 housing units damaged during the 34-day war. A further $108 million of compensation will be distributed to 60,000 additional homes that were assessed. In the context of his listing of the “achievements,” Siniora admitted that the paid compensation in the southern suburb did not exceed 15.4 billion Liras out of the 62 billion Liras that have to be paid to about 2848 affected housing units. Siniora admitted also, that some villages have yet to be surveyed, and consequently "a number" of households have not received payments.
Engineers from Khatib and Alami - the firm contracted by the government immediately after the war without an open tendering process to serve as what officials have alternately referred to as either a consultant or independent auditor - have conducted damage assessments on 10,149 apartments, and approved future indemnity payments for 6,924 units. Khatib and Alami also identified 4,952 housing units in need of $108 million worth of rehabilitation, but Siniora did not offer an estimate for the cost of reconstructing the 230 completely destroyed buildings in Dahiyeh.
In an interview televised Sunday on Al-Aalam, al-Sayyed Nasrallah accused the government of "politicizing" the reconstruction by delaying the rebuilding in Dahiyeh.
Hezbollah`s construction wing, Jihad al-Binaa, formed a separate unit to rebuild the southern suburbs following the resignation of the opposition Cabinet ministers in November. An undisclosed number of residents have since signed power of attorney over to the Waad (Promise) project to lead the rebuilding process, but a Promise project manager told The Daily Star that the government is not recognizing their authority.
"I cannot comment on partially destroyed houses since the Waad project is not concerned with those, but very little compensation has been paid for destroyed buildings, less than LL1 million, I think," the Promise official told The Daily Star shortly after the news conference on condition of anonymity.
The government agreed to pay an average indemnity of $55,000 for each destroyed home last year.
The Promise official said "$100 million from Saudi Arabia was supposed to be used to rebuild Dahiyeh, but the government is holding on to it to exert pressure on the Lebanese people.”Siniora said people must collect indemnities in person which is illegal because the government is supposed to recognize power of attorney," he added.
Al-Sayyed Nasrallah said Sunday that the Promise project was nearly done with an urban planning scheme for the Dahiyeh, and was in the process of tender agreements to begin construction on May 25.
source : promise