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| Sunday, 30 April 2006 |
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Swiss pledges $15.5m to rebuild houses by Surekha Galagoda The Switzerland government has pledged USD 15.5 million with technical support to help the house owner driven reconstruction program of the government of Sri Lanka, the Cash for Repair and Reconstruction program to rebuild the houses damaged and destroyed by the tsunami in December 2004. The program which started in April last year plans to complete the second phase by end 2006,said Ambassador of Switzerland Bernardino Regazzoni. Switzerland established a consortium including the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) Swiss Solidarity, The Swiss Red Cross and Swiss Interchurch Aid HEKS. The program is being implemented in Matara and Trincomalee where they have already helped to build over 7,000 partially or fully damaged houses. The finances are being disbursed through the Bank of Ceylon, People's Bank and the Ruhuna Development Bank to the recipients. Under the first phase of the CFRR, Switzerland will rehabilitate 8,544 houses in Matara and Trincomalee. So far over 7,000 houses have been reconstructed or repaired. All 4,953 beneficiaries in Matara have received their last installment. Now 68% of the 815 houses which were completely destroyed have been reconstructed and the repair work of 94% of the 4,138 partially destroyed houses have been completed in Trincomalee 64% of 1,364 totally destroyed houses have been completely rebuilt and 72% of 2,366 partially destroyed houses have been fully repaired. The Ambassador said the recent decision by the government to modify the initial buffer zone extending the area where people will be permitted to rebuild their homes also implies a substantial increase of potential beneficiaries. Therefore we have agreed to continue and expand the program into another phase in Matara and Trincomalee. Under this phase another 4,000 houses will be built or repaired. "We have been able to build eight schools in Matara and the program which will continue until 2008 is expected to be over USD 8.6 million," he said. SDC also launched a post conflict school rehabilitation program in 2003 where we have completed the construction work of 13 out of 17 schools. Treasury Secretary Dr. P. B. Jayasundera said the housing programs launched by the SDC in Matara and Trincomalee are a model that could be emulated by anybody. He said the country is recovering after the December 2004 tsunami which
killed more than 50,000 people and destroyed property, but there are
constraints. There is much to be done but work is progressing. The fisheries
sector recovered faster than expected after the tsunami, Dr. Jayasundera
said . |
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