30,000 Lampung residents under threat of power outage
Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post, Bandarlampung
As more than 30,000 Lampung residents have quit paying their electric bills in protest of state-owned electricity company PT PLN's revolving blackouts, PLN hit back on Monday by warning the protesters that it would cut electricity completely unless the bills were paid.
The chief of the PLN office in Tanjungkarang, P. Samosir, said here on Monday that the power cut could begin immediately because the 30,000 consumers had not paid their bills for three months.
He acknowledged that PLN had already cut electricity to a number of residents who had not paid and such measures would be taken against other protesters.
He said PLN's monthly income from some 540,000 customers in the province had dropped by 8.5 percent to Rp 33 billion from Rp 40 billion over the past three months.
Meanwhile, Aswari, 32, a resident of Blambangan Umpu in Way Kanan regency, said a great number of PLN customers in the regency had joined the protest along with tens of thousands of others in other regencies in protest of the rotating blackouts that PLN had instituted in a bid to conserve energy in the province for the past ten months, due to technical problems.
"We have stopped paying our bills since September because, in addition to the increased amount we have to pay, PLN has increased the frequency of the blackouts to every second day from once in three days. We are now being asked to pay higher rates, but PLN fails to maintain or improve its service to the public. So, why should we pay our bills," he said.
Aswari, also coordinator of the Corruption Eradication Society (PMPK), said PMPK would also help with legal advice for those consumers protesting PLN over the blackouts "and we will file a class-action lawsuit against PLN over this case."
Zen Gunarto, a resident of Bandar Jaya in Central Lampung, concurred and said the number of consumers declining to pay their bills was expected to continue increasing because of PLN's poor service.
"Speaking frankly, in addition to seriously limiting local people's activities, the blackout has damaged many electronic goods such as televisions, radios, computers and freezers. The absurd thing is that PLN does not seem to be paying any attention to this problem," he said.
He said would rather bear with a permanent cut of power to his home so that PLN wakes up to the fact that PLN, the monopoly holder in the power distribution to the public, could no longer mistreat the public arbitrarily.
Hasan Arifin, a resident of Way Kandis in the city, complained that several electronic appliances in his house had been damaged because of the unstable power supply.
"PLN has decided not to compensate us for losses incurred because we could not prove that the damage was a direct result of the rotating blackouts," he said.
The chairman of the local office of the Indonesian Consumers Agency (YLKI), Subadrayani Mursalin, condemned PLN's unilateral action, saying that it was against the 1999 consumer's law.
"First of all, PLN should try to understand why the people are refusing to pay their bills and, secondly, that the power should not have been cut without advance warning or input from the public before it went ahead with the blackouts," he said.
The blackouts, earlier were done once every third day in each district in the province following the major flood damage to the hydroelectric power plant in Way Besai, West Lampung in January. Since Aug. 31, 2002, the blackouts were done every second day because several hydroelectric plants, both in Lampung and South Sumatra, were functioning far below maximum as a result of a major water deficit to run them. That deficit has been attributed to prolonged drought and the rampant illegal logging in the rain- forests of southern Sumatra.
The chief of the technical division at the PLN office, Djoko Sutoyo, acknowledged that his company was facing a deficit of between 80 Megawatts (MW) and 100 MW per day due to the ongoing repair work in the huge diesel-powered generators in Tarahan and Apung in Lampung, in Kramasan, South Sumatra and the generators in Tanjung Enim, South Sumatra.
Djoko said that besides speeding up the repair work, PLN was also purchasing some 54 MW of power per day from two private companies.
According to PLN data, the province has 32 power-generating stations with a total capacity of 275,166 MW a day while the demand at peak hours currently averages over 276,000 MW.
Additionally, dozens of main transmission lines in forested areas of Lampung and South Sumatra are prone to disturbances, including sabotage and logging accidents.