Financial Times

Corporate rivalry over relief
The flood of foreign aid and pledges of support following the tragedy caused by the tsunami has provided the country with an unprecedented opportunity to heal deep wounds inflicted by 20 years of war, bridge the rifts between the different communities and launch an infrastructure rebuilding effort that could alter the island's urban landscape. The cost in terms of lives lost is unparalleled for a single event and is certainly the most serious of the effects of the tsunami.

The extent of the physical damage is now beginning to be revealed. Almost 100,000 homes were destroyed and entire townships wiped out. The damage to the road and rail network as well as power and telecommunications systems is also extensive. Much of the aid that has been pledged will go to repair and rebuild the island's infrastructure and here is a golden opportunity for the country to not just repair the damage but to build a completely new infrastructure, replacing the dilapidated and outdated ones that existed before the tsunami struck.

The government has done well to involve the private sector in the relief and rehabilitation effort by drawing on the organisational skills of key figures in the business community as well as making use of their financial and other resources.

Their experience and skills could be used to overcome the bottlenecks and other problems that inevitably crop up in the effort to cope with a human tragedy of this magnitude.

While the outpouring of corporate sympathy and support for the victims of the disaster is certainly welcome, what is unwelcome is the unsavoury spectacle of companies vying against each other to gain publicity for their charity. Many are the claims by companies and business chambers to be the first to do something, whether it is in distributing relief aid or meeting insurance claims. It almost seems as if, in this age dominated by advertising and the constant, unrelenting efforts to influence consumers by corporate marketing campaigns, even human tragedy on an unprecedented scale is an opportunity for publicity stunts. There also have been adverse comments against some of the television stations, government and private alike, who turned their relief convoys into a bandwagon to promote their own image, even soliciting and broadcasting comments from viewers praising their efforts! Competition in a market economy apparently extends even to the relief effort to look after the victims and survivors.

Such unseemly attempts to exploit the victims of a natural disaster in a crude manner and gain cheap publicity should be stopped forthwith. Attempts to use this tragedy to gain publicity also extends to politicians and there has been some criticism, especially from foreign volunteers who have come here to help the victims, about the abuse of much-needed means of transport such as helicopters. We have heard reports of politicians touring affected areas in helicopters while doctors and other relief workers were desperately seeking ways to ferry urgently required medicines to victims in the more remote and inaccessible regions affected by the tsunami.

Helicopters are a valuable means of transport in an event like this when usual means of access such as roads and railways get damaged or destroyed. Priority should be given to the needs of the relief effort in deploying helicopters and they should not be made available for joy rides by politicians even if they pay for the hire.

In this context the call made by the Joint Business Forum or J-Biz, the umbrella organisation grouping most of the island's business and trade chambers, for a 'Government of National Reconciliation and Reconstruction' and for all political parties to voluntarily agree on a moratorium on political activities during the first half of 2005, is indeed appropriate.

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