Legislators submit petition rejecting utility price rises
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Legislators ate their words on Monday when they demanded the government to reverse its decision on the utility price hikes, despite the fact that they had agreed to the increases in the first place.
Dozens of intra-faction legislators submitted a petition to the House of Representatives (DPR) plenary meeting on Monday urging the legislative body to tell the government to cancel its decision to increase electricity and telephone rates and remove the fuel subsidy.
The House had in principle agreed to the increases when it endorsed the 2003 National Development Program (Propernas) and state budget last year.
The legislators -- some of the initiators came from President Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) -- also urged the government to cancel the release and discharge scheme for big debtors and stop depending on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international institutions to revive the country's economy.
"The government's decisions to increase utility prices and to release big debtors are clearly detrimental to the majority of Indonesians," legislator Lukman Hakim Saifuddin said when reading out the petition in the first House plenary meeting in 2003 here on Monday.
The government raised telephone and electricity rates and removed the fuel subsidy on Jan. 1 to finance the country's budget and reduce the budget deficit, which had been funded with foreign financing, especially from the IMF.
The announcement, however, met with strong protests from trade unions, students and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), who argued that the simultaneous increases would further burden the public.
It also hurt the people's sense of justice as the increases took effect after the government issued a presidential instruction endorsing the release and discharge scheme for big debtors, under which debtors who have fulfilled their obligations to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) are exempt from criminal charges.
Trade unions and students as well as NGOs have been organizing street rallies against the prices hikes, with some calling for the ouster of both Megawati and Vice President Hamzah Haz.
The PDI Perjuangan faction at the House urged Megawati on Monday to reverse the decision on the telephone rate hike but supported the increases in electricity and fuel prices.
A number of noted politicians, trade unions and student groups held a meeting over the weekend to discuss ways on how to unseat Megawati, who took over the national leadership in July 2001 after members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) impeached then president Abdurrahman Wahid for incompetence.
On Monday evening, MPR chairman Amien Rais met with his deputies and they agreed that the government had to annul the utility price hikes.
However, Amien, who was at the forefront in ousting Abdurrahman in 2001, conceded that the MPR, the country's highest legislative body, does not have the power to impeach a president or vice president.
Under the amended 1945 Constitution, only the House, with the consent of the constitutional court, has the authority to impeach a president. The constitutional court has yet to be established.
House Speaker Akbar Tandjung said on Monday that the House would host a consultation meeting with the three coordinating ministers of Megawati's Cabinet on Wednesday to discuss the utility price hikes.
But the government hinted on Monday that they may not show up at the meeting as the House failed to follow procedures for holding a meeting.
State Minister of Communications and Information Syamsul Mu'arif said that the proposal should be brought to the House consultative body before it called for a consultation meeting with the government.
"If the meeting is held in accordance with House regulations, the government will comply. We will not respond if it goes against procedures," Syamsul said after the Cabinet meeting.
"We do not want to set a bad precedent," the minister said without elaborating.
He further said that the decision to summon the three coordinating ministers was made when the House was still in recess and the government had yet to receive a formal invitation for the meeting.
"We do mind about fulfilling the request as it was not done in line with the House's internal regulations," Syamsul, who is a former legislator from the Golkar party, said.