Freeloaders short-circuit PLN to tune of Rp 7b

Nana Rukmana, Cirebon, West Java

Around 64,000 electricity customers in the State Electricity Company (PLN)'s Cirebon district have not paid their bills for the past three months and, as a consequence, the power utility has found itself shortchanged to the tune of around Rp 7 billion (US$850,000).

"The length of the arrears varies from one month to three months," Cirebon district general manager Muchdi Yasin told The Jakarta Post in Cirebon, West Java.

Muchdi said that if customers failed to pay arrears dating back more than three months, PLN would be compelled to cut off their power.

"We will inform our customers directly before we disconnect them. If they don't come up with an adequate response, we will be forced to cut them off," he said recently.

Non-paying customers account for around 9 percent of the total number of customers in Cirebon district, which encompasses Kuningan, Indramayu and Cirebon regencies, as well as Cirebon municipality, he said.

Of the Rp 7 billion in arrears, he added, Rp 1.3 billion was owed by three ice plants in Indramayu regency.

"We have cut off their power supplies as they failed to act in good faith as regards settling their bills. We told them what we were going to do, but they still wouldn't pay up," said Muchdi.

However, he declined to name the three ice plants. "It would be unethical for me to give you their names. But you may rest assured, they were in arrears to the tune of Rp 1.3 billion," he said.

The Rp 7 billion owed to PLN Cirebon accounts for around 10 percent of its average annual revenue of Rp 70 billion, Muchdi said.

He also explained that the level of electricity abstraction in the area was quite high, which also inflicted losses of billions of rupiah on PLN. To overcome the problem of abstraction, the company would investigate anyone whom they suspected of being involved.

This would be undertaken in collaboration with the police.

"We have asked those who have stolen electricity to pay for what they have stolen," he said, adding that most electricity abstraction was the work of domestic consumers. "They usually tamper with the meters installed in their homes," he said.

Meanwhile, to meet the high demand for new connections, Cirebon PLN will construct 60 new substations, each with a capacity of 400 kilovolt amperes (KVA), which will allow the connection of around 60,000 new customers.

Currently, PLN has some 850,000 customers in Cirebon district.

The construction of the new substations is badly needed as more than half of its existing 2,860 substations are overloaded.