City administration quietly raises water rates by 30 percent
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
In an apparent effort to avert a public outcry, the city administration quietly raised tap water rates by 30 percent on the first day of the year.
When asked by reporters at City Hall on Monday about the supposed deliberation of the increase, Governor Sutiyoso tersely answered, "The new tap water rates have been effective since Jan. 1."
The decision was formalized in Gubernatorial Decree No. 4164/2003 signed by Sutiyoso on Dec. 31, copies of which were made public on Monday.
The decree stipulates that all groups of tap water customers are subject to the increase, including low-income households.
The non-governmental organization Jakarta Water Consumers Community's (Komparta) legal counsel, JJ Amstrong Sembiring, blasted the administration's seeming secrecy.
"That's really a bad habit -- quietly making decrees which have had strong public resistance," he said.
Komparta, which represents more than 1,700 tap water customers in Central Jakarta, has filed a class action lawsuit at the Central Jakarta District Court over the April 2003 rate hikes of 40 percent. The court is slated to deliver a ruling on Jan. 15.
The new increase was approved silently by the City Council during a council speaker's meeting in late November, a few days before the Idul Fitri holiday on Nov. 25 and 26.
However, City Hall spokesman Muhayat denied the increase was made in secret.
"The proposed increase was made public a while back," he told The Jakarta Post.
Muhayat passed on the responsibility to announce the rate hike to city tap water operator PD PAM Jaya.
"Please, ask PAM Jaya to comment on why they have yet to announce the hike," he said.
PAM Jaya's president director Hariyadi Priyohutomo could not be reached for comment.
Amstrong also lamented that the increase was simply neglecting the fact that public's purchasing power is low, while PAM Jaya and its two international partners PT Thames PAM Jaya (TPJ) and PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja) had not significantly improved their services.
"Those operators may increase the rates on condition that they managed to improve their services and efficiency, while curbing water leakages that the customers have suffered all this time."
The City Water Regulatory Body said earlier that 17 percent of the 30 percent hike would be used to pay off PAM Jaya's Rp 900 billion (US$105.88 million) debt to the two partners.
The debt is a cumulative result of the difference between the water rate paid by customers and the water charges that PAM Jaya pays to its partners.
PAM Jaya plans to pay Rp 237.59 billion, or 24 percent of its debts, in installments to TPJ and Palyja next year.
The remaining 13 percent of the rate hike will be used to cover inflation and the partners' operational costs.
Since PD PAM Jaya established its partnership with TPJ and Palyja in early 1998, the water rate has increased three times before this current increase -- 15 percent in February 1998, 35 percent in April 2001 and 40 percent in April 2003.