Shortage of construction materials hampers rebuilding in Jaffna

Two-and-a-half-years after the tsunami struck the Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka, the 432 students at Valvai Sivaguru Vid school in Point Pedro eagerly await the completion of their new school.

The school and one other in Point Pedro - Valvettiturai RCTMS (Roman Catholic Tamil Mixed School) - are being constructed by the UN Children’s Agency (UNICEF), with the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in charge of overseeing the projects.

The construction process has been slowed considerably due to security restrictions in the conflict-ridden peninsula that has made travel to and from construction sites difficult, if not impossible at times, and by a continuing shortage of building materials.

Construction began on the schools in early 2006 and was originally due to be completed in June 2007. It might now be as long as a year before the schools can be completed.

Photo: OCHA

A map of Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka

Headteacher A. Sivanathan explained that his school had been completely destroyed by the tsunami. Until their new facility was finished, he said, “we are forced to have school in four separate places”. The students from grades one to 11, although smartly uniformed and with adequate notebooks and other school supplies in hand, are crammed around old desks in 22 make-shift rooms under tin-roofed structures.

“You can see classes are over-crowded and too noisy. We actually conduct our school assemblies in the road,” said Sivanathan.

Security, A9 road closure

The story of the yet to be completed schools is symbolic of a number of conflict and post-tsunami rehabilitation projects throughout the Jaffna peninsula that have been put on hold, or in some cases never even started.

We are going at a snails pace. To complete the two schools we still need 10,000 bags of cement and 50 metric tonnes of reinforced steel, as well as roofing tiles.

S. Sriskandarajah, the UNOPS regional coordinator for the north and east, told IRIN: “During most of 2006 and into 2007 construction was severely slowed by the security restrictions which even included daytime curfews.”

The forced closure of the A9 highway in August 2006 deprived Jaffna of its sole transport route for goods, and has created construction bottlenecks. As a result of the conflict between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Jaffna is now completely dependent on limited sea transport and air freighting for all its imported goods, including building materials.

Costly construction materials

At the site for the new Valvai Sivagurur Vid school, a concrete and reinforced steel skeleton of the new facility is taking shape but work proceeds very slowly. “The problem is that much of the construction material comes from Colombo, and market prices are very expensive for building supplies,” A. Dominic, a UNOPS technical officer, told IRIN.

“We are going at a snails pace,” said S. Sriskandarajah. “To complete the two schools we still need 10,000 bags of cement and 50 metric tonnes of reinforced steel, as well as roofing tiles… We were recently able to obtain 1,000 bags of cement but at 1,650 rupees!” That’s nearly three times the amount cement used to sell for. “Reinforcing steel has increased in price 100 percent, as well,” Sriskandarajah said, adding that even getting sufficient sand for construction is difficult because the Sri Lankan military, for security reasons, strictly limits truck movements.

Photo: Brennon Jones/IRIN

UNICEF and UNOPS staff tour the construction site for the Valvai Sivaguru Vid school in Point Pedro, Jaffna District

“Security cannot be compromised,” the government agent for Jaffna District, K. Ganesh, told IRIN, referring to movement restrictions on the peninsula.

UNICEF and UNOPS are doing their best to expedite the construction of the schools. With the support of the government agent, UNICEF officials said they were attempting to obtain additional cement and other materials to complete the schools. Their fall-back aim is to secure at least enough materials to semi-complete the buildings so that they can be used for classes in October 2007. In this case, only two out of three planned floors for the Valvai Sivaguru Vid school would be completed. Hopefully, as economic conditions stabilized, they could complete the final floor and all other work on the two schools before June 2008.

Limitations on size of projects

The humanitarian agencies are not alone in facing construction challenges on the Jaffna peninsula. Some government agencies, such as the Ministry of Health, are only allowed to implement projects under one million rupees (US$91,000) because of the high price of building materials and the uncertainty of their availability. Local contractors are reluctant to bid on many projects for the very same reasons.

Among the other projects UNICEF had hoped to execute (with Save the Children and for the Ministry of Social Welfare) was construction of 10 social development centres throughout Jaffna District. The centres would house, under one roof, all government services related to child welfare. In part because some of the sites are in no-go security zones, but largely because the agencies cannot secure the steel and other construction materials, all 10 projects have been put on hold, according to UNICEF.

Photo: Brennon Jones/IRIN

Students at the at the temporary Sivaguru Vid school facility in Point Pedro are eagerly awaiting the construction of a new school, although its completion has been much delayed by security restrictions in the area and a shortage of building material

One UNICEF official, expressing exasperation at the difficulties in moving forward with the school construction projects, said the agency was reduced to mainly direct interventions in education, such as providing notebooks and other school materials, even high energy biscuits for students in nutritional need.

UNICEF also has plans to provide new furniture for many of the schools in Jaffna District that are short of desks and chairs - either because they were destroyed in the tsunami or were burned for firewood by internally displaced persons (IDPs) who were given temporary shelter in the schools in the latter part of 2006. However, the agency cannot get the steel and other materials to construct the new furniture. For the interim, it is making the best of it, by helping to repair the old desks and chairs.

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