;BISNIS INDONESIA;ARP;

;BISNIS INDONESIA;ARP; ANPAk..r.. Letter-customer day National customers' day JP/7/let32

National Customers Day

From Bisnis Indonesia

The report on the National Customers Day carried in Bisnis Indonesia, Sept. 2, 2003, amazed me. President Megawati Soekarnoputri officially inaugurated the day on Sept. 4 by signing a first day cover for new National Customers Day 2003 stamps, a picture of which was published on the front page of the same paper on Sept. 5.

Color photos of the State Minister for State Enterprises, 15 state enterprise president directors, and the chairman of Frontier (a marketing & research consultancy firm), attending the ceremony marking the inauguration of this national day were also carried on page 5 of the paper, accompanied by various slogans espousing better customer care and satisfaction.

As a customer, I would like to appeal to state enterprises to provide customer service in a fair manner by creating a professional system of charge determination so that customers will not be threatened by having service cut off or having fines imposed.

In the case of the state electricity company, PLN, the collection of charges should be done by sending bills or statements to customers (as is done by the state telecommunications company, Telkom). In this way, customers will receive a formal notification of the amounts they have to pay.

Such bills or statements should also serve as receipts for the payments made in previous months so that customers need not save all the bills from the preceding periods. To date, costumers have to pay the charges for earlier months or years if they cannot produce evidence of payment -- for example, in a case where the receipt has been lost. If they do not make such payments, their electricity supply will be cut off or fines imposed within two weeks.

I wonder how it is that the loss of a bill that has already been paid can also result in the "disappearance" of PLN's record of the payment. PLN should thus establish a special section to accommodate customer complaints with its findings being made public through the media.

S. SUHARIMAN Jakarta

;MEDIA INDONESIA;LEI; ANPAk..r.. Letter-Eradicating terrorism JP/7/let43

On eradicating terrorism

From Media Indonesia

Rampant terrorist acts across the world have led to controversies in our country about the need for our intelligence service to enjoy greater authority, so that terrorism can be better countered and handled.

Bomb attacks perpetrated by terrorists in Indonesia have led to both the world's sympathy for Indonesia and allegations that the country is a lair of terrorists.

To deal with the impact of terrorist attacks at home, the Indonesian government issued a government regulation in lieu of law on antiterrorism in 2002, which the House later ratified as the law on antiterrorism.

The law can be enforced effectively only if our intelligence service enjoys greater authority in dealing with terrorism. Our national police cannot make the best use of this law unless it is supported by intelligence services, for example the intelligence service of the Indonesian military and the state intelligence agency.

The fact is that now, our intelligence services enjoy only a limited authority to arrest those suspected of being involved in terrorist acts, while the national police have no authority to carry out such arrests. The police can arrest only those who are suspected of having committed terrorist acts.

It is this legal constraint that has prevented our security apparatuses from properly preventing and countering acts of terror in this country.

The deputy prime minister of Malaysia once attributed that country's success in establishing security and prosperity for Malaysians to the enforcement of its Internal Security Act (ISA). Indonesia must look up to Malaysia as a model in this respect.

ADAM SYAHRONI Jakarta