Evaluation of Handover Practice in Post-disaster Reconstruction in Aceh Province, Indonesia

Abstract

As the largest reconstruction project in the developing world at the time, Aceh's post reconstruction experience may provide useful lessons on how aid is delivered particularly for public buildings and facilities as one of the largest amount of projects after housing. In Indonesian construction industry, among many stages of construction process, handover is still commonly underrated or even skipped. This is no different in the case of post-disaster reconstruction where challenges raised as there were pressures to build thousands of facilities in a limited amount of time and need to be occupied as soon as possible. This study objective is to evaluate the handover practice in post-disaster reconstruction of public buildings and facilities after being occupied. The survey focused only for buildings constructed by the Indonesia government agency (BRR) and managed to cover 24 buildings that are divided into government offices, schools and community health centres in Banda Aceh, the capital city of Aceh province from total 53 buildings available. Questionnaires were distributed to respondents which are government staff that responsible for the building operational with a response rate of 54%. The survey results show that the handover process is not completed and therefore the respondents doubt with the building quality. Though, respondents are neutral in accepting buildings without proper handover because they understand the urgency of operating public buildings and facilities immediately in emergency situation. Respondents still urged for post-occupancy evaluation by independent committee and fully agreed for proper handover practice in the future. As for final recommendation, conducting project evaluation by independent committee is essential even most of the buildings already being used and might replace the lack of handover administration stage for legal solution in government assets in the context of Aceh's post-reconstruction.