Plea made for churches to have special fund for earthquake rebuild

By PETER WARI
CHURCHES need special funding to help them rebuild their fascilities damaged by February’s earthquake, says a former provincial official.
Damage suffered by the churches will cost millions of kina to replace or repair, said former Southern Highlands provincial disaster coordinator Martin Pat.
He said that from his experience of the drought in 2015, relief aid funding was misused and that should not be allowed to happen this time, underscoring the need for the churches’ earthquake rebuild to have a separate funding stream.
“Churches know how to make use of little funds,” Pat said.
He said the relief and recovery phase has been completed and the reconstruction phase should therefore be implemented quickly because people need support to rebuild their lives.
“There is slowness in the second phase because unskilled people are in position to execute duties,” he said. “Service providers were coming up with high markup prices, giving headache to the disaster committee.”
Pat said people appreciated the help received so far from the national and provincial governments, donor agencies and other provinces.