Quake rebuilding to complete by 2009: President
By Our Special Correspondent

ISLAMABAD—President General Pervez Musharraf Thursday said 80 per cent of reconstruction work in uake-ravaged areas would be completed by 2009 but urged donors to help meet shortfall of 800 million dollars for building houses and facilities in excess of earlier estimates.
Speaking at the first ERRA Annual Review Conference, he reaffirmed resolve of the government to convert the challenge posed by October 8 earthquake into an opportunity for raising living standard of people.
"We can not bring 73,000 people who died but I assure the survivors to give them better life, better living standard and facilities," he promised.
President Musharraf said he had set 2009 as target for the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) to complete 80 per cent of reconstruction work in quake-hit areas of AJK and NWFP by 2009.
But the construction of houses would be completed by December, 2008 as, the President said, it was the main issue for the sustenance of people in the areas devastated by 7.6 magnitude earthquake last year.
However, as against an earlier estimate of 400,000 houses, the government would now have to build 600,000 houses to accommodate some 3.5 million displaced persons.
As a result, the President said, the cost of 3.6 billion dollars calculated earlier for the reconstruction phase has now increased to 4.4. billion dollars, creating a shortfall of 800 million dollars.
The President urged the people and the international community to help meet the challenge of building additional houses and other facilities in excess of earlier estimates. The amount would be utilized most judiciously to provide comfort to the people affected by the earthquake, he added.
President Musharraf highly praised the efforts of ERRA to meet the challenges and said Pakistan was now being referred to as a text-book model for meeting tragedy of such epic proportion.
He also expressed his gratitude to the international community, the United Nations, innumerable NGOs, the entire Pakistani nation and the country's armed forces for joining hands to give everything to those who lost everything.
These combined efforts, the President said, had proved those wrong who were portraying dooms-day scenario and predicting death of people by famine, harsh winter and epidemics.
He said no one died of hunger, epidemic or lack of facilities and thanked the global community for their invaluable support to transport relief goods from all over the world and deliver it to the people in remotest of areas.
There were also prediction that people would not survive the harsh Himalayan winter, he said but added that no one was frozen to death and again thanked the world community for meeting the requirement of one million tents.
The President asked those predicting dooms-day scenario to see things positively and understand the realities. In this respect he referred to reports which claimed that some 1.8 million would still be living in tents in the coming winters.
President Musharraf said as a result of the committed efforts, 95 per cent of the affected people now have proper shelter and only five per cent were living in tents. Referring to reports of corruption, the President said while there may be a few instances at the lower level, full credit goes to the ERRA for disbursing Rs.60 billion among the affected people in a transparent manner.