Frustrations over quake rebuilding

By Barbara Plett BBC News, Muzaffarabad

A new reconstruction programme has been agreed

Officials from Saudi Arabia are getting a tour - they've come to see how their money is being spent in Pakistan's earthquake zone.

Under a hot sun in Mansehra the delegation watches the distribution of food and visits a UN school.

It wanders through the operation theatres and intensive care units of a brand new mobile hospital, part of the kingdom's nearly $300m in assistance.

"The Saudi hospital was the first to land in Pakistan after the earthquake, and more than 100,000 people benefited," says Abdul Aziz Arrukban, a Saudi special ambassador for the UN's food programme.

"Today we have a new hospital and we are going to hand it to the Pakistani people, now is the time for them to carry on the job."

For Pakistan, the job is still in its early stages.

Grand strategy

With the advent of spring, the government has launched a massive reconstruction project backed by $6.4bn in international pledges.

Saudi Arabia's Abdul Aziz Arrukban (left) inspects aid efforts

Major General Nadeem Ahmad is deputy head of the Pakistani agency charged with organising the task.

He rattles through the grand strategy for rebuilding villages and cities spread over 30,000 square kilometres. It's all there in black and white - goals, structures, and methods.

"All the rebuilding of the housing is owner-driven," he says.

"We're ensuring that the homes are seismically resistant. We're setting up 11 reconstruction training centres that will provide guidance to the people."

Such confidence characterised the army's approach to the relief operation, carried out successfully through the winter with international aid agencies.

Still waiting

But seven months on from Pakistan's worst natural disaster, discontent is rumbling.

Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, was near the epicentre of the earthquake. Prodded by the government, most people have vacated the emergency tent camps set up for the homeless. But some 60,000 people remain.

Police on guard during a protest at slow compensation for survivors

Seventy-year-old Abdul Rashid is one of them and he's waiting for his compensation.

Like other earthquake victims, he got an initial emergency payment of $400, but his cheque bounced.

And now the donors are demanding a survey of damaged houses before they hand over the rest of the money. That will take at least two more months.

"My house is damaged and the houses of my two sons collapsed," he says with resignation. "Nobody's come for the survey yet, and we don't know when they will."

Complaints are rife about the complexities of registering homes and documenting land ownership according to the new procedures. Soon the monsoon rains will stop any construction. In the meantime the cost of building material is rising.

Reconstruction "is easier in the rural areas," says Farooq Haider Khan, special assistant to the prime minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

"If you talk about Muzaffarabad, we have to rearrange the city, and it will take time. And the people are getting restless. I think only 10-15% will be able to build new houses by winter."

'Authority diminished'

That restlessness has fuelled several demonstrations against the new compensation rules. And there's growing resentment about what's seen as the central government's excessive control of the process.

"Our campaign is directed against the Pakistan government, the army, and the international aid groups," says Shujad Kazmi, one of the organisers of the protest rallies.

"Our local government failed to play its role and raise the voice of the people. We know it's been bypassed by the central earthquake authority."

"Our authority has diminished," agrees a Kashmir official, "and it's difficult to get back power that's been eroded."

So Pakistan's government has its master plan, and in principle, billions of dollars in donor money.

But on the ground in Kashmir, patience is wearing thin. Local elections scheduled for July could be the next focal point for discontent, with campaigns fed by grievances over reconstruction and compensation.