Hundreds of households in the Ia Hlop Commune, Chu Sa District, Gia Lai Province, gathered at the communal headquarters on August 8 and 9 to demand an explanation as to why they have not been given drought compensation.
Hundreds of people gather at the headquarter of Ia Hlop Commune
Tran Quoc Cuong, a local in Village 2, said he had three hectares of coffee beans and lost two hectares in the drought. Despite a government directive to support and provide compensation for the losses, he hasn't received anything. Many other households said they didn't even know that such directive exists.
Farmers also said they hadn't received support money to dig wells and ponds. Only the relatives and acquaintances of the village's heads and commune's leaders were given the money.
According to the locals, the money to help people dig wells and ponds was given to an official in the irrigation office who is from another district, Chu Puh. 20 out of 55 households that have been given the money are relatives of local officials and the rest of those listed to receive the payments were fake. 400 households that should have been given the money didn't even know the payments existed.
People demand drought compensation
Ia Hlop Commune's chairman Le Sy Quy said in the list he received, there were 753 affected households and 514 hectares of coffee beans and black pepper for the winter-spring crop were damaged. The government would provide VND4m (USD181) per hectare for farmers who had lost all of their crops and VND2m per hectare for who had 30 to 70% of their crops damaged.
He claimed reports from his subordinates showed that the money had been given to the right people. The work is still being carried out so Sor Village as well as villages 1 and 2 haven't yet been compensated.
Talking about why people weren't given support money to dig wells, Quy said the officials didn't publicise the information widely enough. The lists were created by the village heads so lots of households didn't know that they had to register with their village heads. He blamed the village officials and even the public themselves for not going to village meetings and reporting their damages to village heads.
Vice head of Chu Se District Nguyen Huu Tam said they had established two inspection teams to review the situation and provide compensation.
Chu Se District is allocated VND7bn (USD318,000). Similar incidents have also been reported in many other communes.
