Dili, 18 April 2000
A workshop of the National Consultative Council took place today and reviewed the calendar of the preparation of the budget for the fiscal year of 2000/2001 for the reconstruction and administration of East Timor in view of the donors conference of Lisbon, Portugal, on 21-23 of June.
The session was organized by UNTAET and the World Bank, whose Head of Mission, Sarah Cliff, made a presentation on the budget submitted at the Tokyo s Donor Conference, last December.
One of the conclusions of the assessment of the progress of the reconstruction was that there should be more participation of the National Consultative Council (NCC) on the preparation of the budget and also on its implementation.
It is envisaged that between 30 April and 5 May the projected budget will be discussed between UNTAET, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank, in consultation with the Timorese.
Between 8 and 19 of May, a joint mission of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will assess the budget with UNTAET and the NCC.
And by the end of June after Lisbon s conference the budget for the fiscal year of 2000/2001 should be approved in the NCC.
On Thursday, there will be a second session of the NCC that will be focused on the role of the Government in budget decisions, and on the identification of the priorities for the preparation of the budget.
TWENTY BODIES EXHUMED IN PASSABE
The autopsies of the twenty bodies exhumed last week in Passabe, the enclave of Oecussi, are being conducted today in Dili to determine the gender and age of the victims.
A team of eleven experts of the Human Rights Division and Civpol completed the second phase of the exhumation in Passabe on Saturday, after exhuming twenty bodies in three villages, Passabe, Tumin and Kiubiselo.
The bodies were brought to Dili on Saturday.
It is estimated that at least 75 people died in the Passabe massacre, in September last year. So far, 65 bodies have been exhumed. In the first phase of the work 45 bodies were founded. The exhumation will continue until all the bodies are exhumed.
