Water is going down the drain: Union leader<\/p>\n
Damar Harsanto and Leo Wahyudi S, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Over 40,000 users of state-owned water utility PT PAM Jaya's
\ntap water have been connected to the mains illegally by corrupt
\ncompany staff, a senior union official revealed on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\"Twenty thousand are in western part of the city, while the
\nother 20,000 users are in the east,\" said Zainal Abidin, the head
\nof the PAM Jaya labor union.<\/p>\n
Zainal blamed the high number of illegal connections on the
\nabsence of mains supplying water to the areas in which the
\nconsumers' lived coupled with the poor services provided by the
\ntwo water utilities in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
\"Many residents cannot wait for the long process of obtaining
\na new water connection. They then seek the help of corrupt staff
\nmembers to connect them up to the mains,\" Zainal said.<\/p>\n
Due to the illegal connections, Zainal estimated that the
\nstate was suffering massive losses of at least Rp 1.4 billion a
\nmonth as every consumer used an average of 20 cubic meters of
\nwater per month, while tap water was priced at Rp 1,800 per cubic
\nmeter. \"That's excluding the new connection fee which ranges from
\nRp 85,000 to Rp 340,000 depending on the customer's locality,\" he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
PAM Jaya has two foreign partners, Britain's PT Thames PAM
\nJaya (TPJ) and French-owned PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja).
\nThames supplies about 324,000 customers mostly in the eastern
\npart of the city, while Palyja serves 300,000 customers in the
\nwestern part of Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Separately, both Palyja and TPJ admitted that the poor water
\nsupply in the city was due partly to illegal connections and
\nstaff members on the take.<\/p>\n
TPJ spokeswoman Mia Korompis Dwianto said that consumers' lack
\nof awareness made them willing to accept such irregularities.<\/p>\n
\"Corrupt staff offer faster service by providing an illegal
\nconnection,\" Mia said, adding that they exploited customers who
\nwere in need of quick service.<\/p>\n
She pointed to North Jakarta as an example, where some people
\nhad suffered disruption to their water supplies due to damaged
\nand vandalized valves in the supply network.<\/p>\n
If new customers were patient and were prepared to wait for at
\nleast two weeks for a new connection, they would not be so easily
\ntargeted by the corrupt staff, she said.<\/p>\n
Palyja spokeswoman Maria Sidabutar said that the company was
\nsimultaneously monitoring pipe leaks and trying to detect illegal
\nconnections.<\/p>\n
\"We have succeeded so far in reducing losses from the
\nirregularities from 60 percent to around 47 percent now,\" Maria
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
In response to the complaints, both companies admitted that
\nthey had fallen short of providing better service and a quality
\nproduct due to the poor infrastructure they had inherited.<\/p>\n
TPJ says that in 1997 the total length of the network stood at
\n4,400 kilometers with 324,073 clients in the eastern and northern
\npart of Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Both TPJ and Palyja, however, lamented the fact that the city
\nwater mains used by the two companies were in poor condition due
\nto age.<\/p>\n
\"Only a public campaign on the people's need for water will be
\nable to raise the level of responsibility among consumers,\" Mia
\nsaid.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/water-is-going-down-the-drain-union-leader-1447893297",
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