30,000 Lampung residents under threat of power outage

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.