| Subject: Commuters out, squatters in as
Timor gift fails road test
Commuters out, squatters in as Timor gift fails road test By Adam
Gartrell January 16, 2005 The Sun-Herald
Buses donated to East Timor by the NSW Government in 2002 have never
been used and sit in an empty parking lot, makeshift homes to a handful of
Timor's poor.
Five of the 20-year-old Mercedes-Benz Mark Two buses, worth about
$10,000 each, were shipped to East Timor, at an added cost of $70,000, by
the Transport Department in January 2002.
The buses were intended to help establish much-needed transport
services across the ravaged country.
The department failed to conduct proper feasibility studies, however,
overlooking the fact that the buses are too large for East Timor's roads
and cannot be used.
"Even in [the capital] Dili, the roads are old and too
narrow," East Timorese Consul-General to Australia Abel Guterres
said.
"These buses are just too big. They would run everything else off
the road."
The transport minister in January 2002, Carl Scully, who oversaw the
donation of the surplus buses, said at the time: "These buses will
enable people from all over East Timor to travel freely and easily for the
first time in 25 years.
"People will be able to visit their families and friends for the
first time."
Instead, the buses have moved only two kilometres from Dili's port
where they were originally unloaded.
They sit in a dusty space in the Dili suburb of Colmera, in the shadow
of a burnt-out building, and several homeless Timorese have moved in,
sleeping on the seats and hanging their belongings from the handrails.
Mr Guterres called the NSW Government "very supportive and
sympathetic" to East Timor's plight and said the gesture had been
appreciated.
"We were eager to get our hands on whatever we could at the
time," he said. "There was no time to decide whether it was
feasible or not."
He said a lack of spare parts and mechanical know-how were also
problems.
"If we needed parts we would have to source them [from Australia]
and that would be very expensive for us," he said.
Much of East Timor's infrastructure, including transport, was destroyed
in the violence that followed the vote for independence in 1999. Today,
most Timorese rely on mechanically inadequate minibuses to move around the
mountainous countryside.
Mr Guterres said East Timor's Government did have plans to improve the
country's roads but work would probably not begin until 2010.
"And by then [the buses] will probably be too old," he said.
Back to January menu
December
World Leaders Contact List
Human Rights Violations in East Timor
Main Postings Menu
Note: For those who would like to fax "the
powers that be" - CallCenter is a Native 32-bit Voice Telephony software
application integrated with fax and data communications... and it's free of charge!
Download from http://www.v3inc.com/ |
