HA‘APAI – The delay in the completion of the reconstruction of houses destroyed by Cyclone Ian in Tonga’s Ha‘apai has made life extremely difficult for families who are still living in tents a year on from the disaster, the People’s Representatives for Ha‘apai told the Tongan Parliament last month.

They claimed that dispute over land tenure was the major hold up in construction of housing.

There were a number of propositions to speed up the construction and to move people from living in tents, but so far there is no solution to the problem.

The house owner must confirm that he owns the land before a house can be built.

The reconstruction of houses for the many families who lost their homes was a priority for government after Ian’s devastation on January 11, 2014.

Cyclone Ian was hailed as the strongest hurricane to have struck Tonga, gusting at up to 300km an hour.

With such a devastating blow on the livelihood of these vulnerable people, assistance poured in once the extent of the damage was made known.

The financing and the reconstruction of residential houses was taken over by the World Bank, the Tongan government and the church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Days Saint.

The Minister of Land Lord Ma‘afu with some of his staff spent several weeks on Ha‘apai sorting disputes over land ownership.

By October last year reconstruction was scheduled to start and to be completed by the end of 2014.

With a 50-50 arrangement the World Bank and the Tongan government made available $US13.8 million for the reconstruction of 400 houses.

The LDS chburch offered to finance the reconstruction of 108 houses of church members.

However, at of the end of January 2015, not one of these houses has been officially completed.

Ringo Fa‘oliu, the CEO for the Ministry of Infrastructure who is overseeing the construction of the 400 houses funded by the World Bank and the Tongan Government said last week that it was not possible to meet the initial completion deadline, so a new deadline had been set for the end of March or early April.

Fa‘oliu stressed that his ministry is responsible only for the reconstruction of residential houses.

He said they had signed contracts with four construction companies and budgeted for the construction of 400 houses.

One of Fa‘oliu’s major worries is that the contractors have no work to do because of a hold-up in the processing of the land issue.

He said that the hold-up was costing money, and it would eat away his budget.

The 400 houses are in two groups, 200 houses in Group A and another 200 houses in Group B.

The difference between the two groups are that Group A houses are bigger, valued at $32,000 per house, whereas Group B houses are half the size and value.

Fa‘oliu said that they took eight guiding factors into consideration before placing a house owner either in Group A or B. These factors included if a disabled person was one of the occupants, and the urgency of the house owner’s need.

He said that at present 86 houses in Group A had been approved and were currently under construction.

Eighty seven houses had also been approved and were currently under construction in Group B.

Fa‘oliu said that with regards to the land issue, the three groups of land owners who were involved are the government, the nobles and individual land owners.

He said that there had been a few problems with individual land owners.

He said that when they are building houses for those who lost their houses during the cyclone, they were dealing with the actual person who was living in the house when the cyclone struck.

If the actual owner of the house was overseas when the cyclone struck, “he is not entitled for a house, but the one who was living in the house is, and a new house for him could be built on his own land somewhere else.”

There was also a proposition that to overcome the land problem, for the building of these houses to go ahead and for government to be the guarantor.

However, Fa‘oliu said that after some discussion with lawyers from the office of the Attorney General, there was no firm decision on that proposition.

Howard Niu, the LDS Tonga Service Centre Manager, confirmed from Ha‘apai that their contractor is currently working on 72 houses out of the 108 houses that the LDS Church was building in Ha’apai for church members.

He said they had documents from the Ha‘apai Governor’s Office, clearing the land issue for them to proceed and build the 108 houses.