Kuntoro Mangkusubroto: JP/Duncan Graham

Kuntoro Mangkusubroto was once entrusted to do the toughest job in Indonesia.

Repairing a landscape ripped raw by the world's most extreme natural disaster.

Housing the grief-stricken survivors whose relatives, friends and neighbors were among the 170,000 lost.

Rebuilding roads, bridges, ports, power stations, hospitals -- all the infrastructure that makes a city function.

Managing a huge budget and being accountable to governments and NGOs in Indonesia and around the world.

Coping with the hostility, the prejudice, the deep-seated suspicions still virulent after almost three decades of civil war, the jealousy, the angry confrontationists and the back-stabbers.

At the time Aceh was devastated by the 2004 tsunami and an earthquake a few months later, it was a tortured land drained of trust, particularly hostile toward the Javanese from the central government.

But Kuntoro, the director of the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency for Aceh and Nias (BRR), stayed the distance and achieved the agency's goals.

That the 61-year-old looks fresh enough to tackle another epic catastrophe shows that he is a distinctly gifted human being -- although he is swift to reject this appraisal.

"I'm just myself," he said.

Four years ago this Boxing Day, a massive undersea earthquake off Aceh triggered a tsunami. Waves 12 meters high swept across 800 kilometers of coast and up to 1.6 kilometers inland.

It was like a scene from Armageddon.

The world pledged US$7.2 billion and delivered $6.7 billion. Thousands of aid workers flooded in with a multiplicity of agendas. Also attracted were those who saw the chance to exploit the situation and milk the largesse.

With Indonesia ranking 143rd on the world's corruption index, the cynics were predicting that much of the aid would never reach those hurting the most, and that petty bureaucracy would destroy even the best-intentioned and most resilient.

Indeed, there has been some minor project-level corruption that is being pursued, Kuntoro said, but the BRR has not been infected. The agency's accounts were checked by international auditors and passed with flying colors.

"We set up an internal anti-corruption unit, the first for any Indonesian government agency," he told The Jakarta Post during a recent visit to New Zealand to address a conference on disaster risk management and thank the Kiwis for their generosity.

"We developed new standards of accountability for Indonesia and in advance of many other countries," he said.

"We encouraged everyone to blow the whistle if they saw anything amiss. They just had to send me an SMS. I asked my staff to pledge their honesty and promise never to take one penny they were not entitled to have."

When President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono handpicked the former mines and energy minister, business rescuer, company director, academic and civil engineer to take on the new BRR job in April 2005, Kuntoro dictated his terms.

They included ministerial ranking, direct access to the president -- a privilege used only three times -- and a salary three times larger than other ministers, an issue that drew much criticism.

"They were able to moonlight to supplement their salaries. I have no other income. I do not take speaking fees or envelopes for anything I do," he said.

"I fly economy class and not just to save money. At the back of the plane people talk to me and tell me what's really happening. I thought this job was a chance given by God to touch the hands of the needy people, to go and do something good.

"Not many have that opportunity. Our success can be measured."

Kuntoro, who was educated at Bandung Institute of Technology and Stanford University in the United States, draws his moral values and anti-corruption stance from his parents.

"My father was a straight lawyer and my mother a professor of English. ... They brought me up to do good for other people, to be a good person, to be happy. We led a simple life.

He started as a civil engineer, but "fell in love" with decision analysis, a broad discipline where moral values are the most important.

"There are consequences to every action and the last defense is your conscience. You can compromise your strategy but never compromise your values.

"Have I been tempted? Many times, but it's always like that. Life isn't all about money. How does money relate to family, values and God?"

He said there were no how-to guides available for the job, no models of what to do, and the task was monumental in itself, even without considering the demonstrations and brutal words he had to face.

"Management was a nightmare. People blamed me for being too slow or not sensitive enough, but I had to remember they were the victims and had the right to blame.

"Twice I felt like giving up. I'm not too religious, but I believe. Yes. I trusted that we were sent by God to do this job. We are the extension of the hands of God and it is our duty."

The first bureaucratic challenge came within hours of Kuntoro being sworn in at the Presidential Palace. No one in the government would give him the money for airfares to Aceh because there was no system in place and it was a weekend.

The Australian aid agency AusAID stepped in with US$100,000 cash and Kuntoro and his team were able to get to ground zero -- where there was no office or housing until the United Nations High Commission for Refugees gave the BRR space.

"I thought these things were God's doing," he said. "I was just the man in the middle.

"When I chose staff I sought people of the highest integrity. I didn't know them before. I asked if they were willing. If they said *yes' they were employed. If they asked *how much?' or *I'll have to ask my boss' then they were out.

"I have self-confidence -- some think I have too much. A good manager must have guts and be self-reliant, have a nothing-to-lose attitude. You will make mistakes. The art is in solving problems at the lowest cost, to create harmony and make unbiased judgments, to get results."

In April next year, the BRR disappears from everything except the history books. One of these will be written by Kuntoro unless he is headhunted to fix another crisis.

In material terms, the BRR has changed Aceh for the better, with good emerging from the horror.

More than 93 percent of the job has been done. People are back farming and fishing. Traffic chaos has returned. The roads are sealed, the bridges sturdy, the 125,000 new houses hygienic, the public buildings of a standard better than those of other provinces.

Visa, work permit and import clearance procedures have been streamlined and accelerated, delivered through a one-stop shop.

Land titles now include the wife's name, ensuring her security should her husband die -- a reform yet to spread to other provinces. National whistle-blower laws are being considered.

The templates for business and departmental propriety are there for other agencies and managers to pick up -- if they so desire.

Could corruption be eliminated and Indonesia rank alongside New Zealand as the world's cleanest country?

Kuntoro, normally a master of the snappy response, paused. "Yes. But only if there's the political will."

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