Consumers' protection

Consumers' protection

From Media Indonesia

The Foundation of Indonesian Consumers Institution views the
increase of the electricity tariff to be a burden to the majority
of the population. A number of members of the House of
Representatives also voice the same opinion. This demonstrates
that the foundation has the interests of the people in mind.

To cite an example, if we pay an electricity bill of Rp 33.725
and the official rounds off the figure to Rp 33,800, the
difference of Rp 75 does not seem really important. It may be
worth one cigarette. But if that figure is multiplied by the
number of customers, it comes to a huge amount of money. Then
where does the money go? Such a practice of rounding off figures
also happens in other places, like in supermarkets. But they give
the customers a few candies to balance the change.

The society has to put up with many disadvantages of daily
life, like poor road conditions, drinking water shortages,
telephone failure, over-crowded buses, to mention but a few.

In spite of hard efforts to protect consumers, the foundation
has not achieved much. Could it be because it is a private body?
In my opinion, to improve the position of the foundation, and to
make its programs more effective, it should be "adopted" by the
National Committee of Human Rights. This committee was
established in 1993 through Presidential decision No 50/1993
charged with tasks of monitoring and giving advice to the
government concerning the implementation of the human rights. If
this can be realized, dialog with other government institutions
will be more probable in the effort to find solutions to various
societal problems.

TJANDRA M. MULJADI

Jakarta