Former presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr. encouraged the private sector, the US public and NGOs to continue fund-raising efforts for the reconstruction of the nations devastated by the Dec 26 tsunami.
 
Speaking at a summit on post-tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction here Thursday, both the former presidents - who have been nicknamed by the media as "the odd couple" since becoming co-chairs of the US Private Sector Tsunami Relief - urged Americans to reach deeper into their pockets to secure a future for the abject region.

The summit was organised by several NGOs including the US Chamber of Commerce and the Asia Foundation, reports UPI.

"Their future is literally resting in your hands, in our hands," said Bush. "Make no mistake: What we accomplish here in this conference matters. It matters to those kids and each of those survivors who aren't looking for a handout, but simply a hand-up, a chance to get their lives back.

"The job of coordinating the reconstruction aid is a massive challenge. It is also a tremendous opportunity. Already we have seen how our collective actions can indeed make a difference," he added.

The US has donated over $1.2 billion in aid between the general public and corporate businesses. More than 130 US companies have each given more than $1 million in cash donations besides in-kind contributions offering nutritional supplements, antibiotics, infant formulas, housing supplies and clothing.

Even with the outstanding international relief given by over a dozen nations to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Maldives, Thailand, India, Malaysia and Somalia, emergency-relief organisations have expressed frustration over delays in receiving hundreds of containers of international relief due to governmental corruption, lost paperwork and logistical problems.

Reacting to some of the general criticism of aid efforts to the region five months after the tsunami struck killing nearly 300,000 people and displacing roughly a million, Bush said that problems were bound to arise when undertaking a massive relief effort of this scale.

Clinton addressed the frustration of many donors who have made monetary and in-kind contributions, promising to put forth the most transparent process to track relief efforts.

"There are hundreds of honest reliable NGOs down there. Every government setting that is done ... has its own transparency and accountability mechanism," said Clinton, UN special envoy for tsunami recovery.

"My pledge to all of you is I will try to make sure that the transparency and the accountability is preserved and that we are coordinating as much as we possibly can between the international community, agencies and the local governments," he added.

"We are all doing something that we haven't done before, so we are all going to make mistakes. You can't make politics go away," said Clinton. "It's going to take time for governments to appropriate this money and get this money out," he said urging the private sector to further contribute to the relief efforts being made at this crucial time.

--Indo-Asian News Service