Lawyers to sue PT Telkom over phone tariff increase

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Lawyer's Union (SPI) said on Thursday that they would sue the government and state-owned PT Telkom over the unreasonable increase in telephone tariffs.

"We will go ahead with our plan of bringing them to court if they don't cancel the new telephone rates by March 5," SPI's chairman Trimedya Panjaitan told a press conference on Thursday.

He said that the government deserves to face such a lawsuit, citing the fact that a tariff increase of up to 24 times fails to satisfy two principles of good governance, namely, public trust and acting in a fair and reasonable manner.

"The government will suffer from public distrust through this unbearable tariff hike that is questionable in itself and in the mechanism of the decision process," Trimedya told reporters.

SPI's head of Research and Development Syarif Bastaman said the government and PT Telkom should involve related institutions before introducing new rates.

"There should be an appropriate hearing mechanism that involves a true representative of the public, in this case the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI)," he said.

Meanwhile the Director General of Post and Telecommunications Sasmito Dirdjo said on Wednesday that the government will soon review the new telephone rates amid public protest, according to Antara news agency.

The new tariff increases, on top of two raises last year amounting to almost 20 percent, were based on call distance -- up to 20 kilometers for local zone one , up to 30 kilometers for local zone two and over 30 kilometers for local zone three.

Telkom said that the highest increase of 24 percent was for the last category but observers said that the planned increase would be much higher than those announced by the telecommunications company.

According to the Econit consulting agency, the increase in the tariff within local zone three could reach over 100 percent at peak hours.

"At present, the directorate general for posts and telecommunications, and PT Telkom are calculating the percentage of tariff hikes for local zone three, which will remain feasible for business calculations," Sasmito said. (02)