Low subsidy, conflict blamed for power crisis
M. Azis Tunny, The Jakarta Post, Ambon
Ambon schools did not pay their electricity bills for years on end due to low power subsidies and the prolonged sectarian conflict, Ambon school executives said on Saturday.
J. Soukotta, the school principal of Ambon 4 Vocational High School, said that the power subsidy that the government paid to the school was insufficient to cover the school's power use.
Each quarter, the government paid the school Rp 3,750,000 (US$390) to pay for electricity, while the school had to pay electricity bills of at least Rp 4 million per month.
In an interview on Saturday, Soukotta also lashed out at PT PLN for allegedly manipulating electricity bills. He said that the amount in arrears that the schools had to pay was too much. Of the 27 schools being threatened by PT PLN to have their power off if they fail to pay arrears by May 3, Soukotta's school is the biggest debtor with bills being unpaid since August 2002 and now standing at Rp 214.6 million.
"It is unbelievable. There is a difference between what PT PLN's employees record in field and the bills the company gives to us, so that I suspect there are irregularities in the measuring of electricity usage," said Soukotta.
In May 2003, for example, records on the electricity box showed that the school used 2,013 kWh (kilowatt hours) of electricity, but in the company's print out, it was stated that the school had to pay for the use of 2,795 kWh for that month. "Can you imagine if such a difference happened every month? If the electricity used was recorded properly, we would not have to pay that much," said Soukotta.
Soukotta also complained that the amount of money that the schools had to pay in certain months was too high, even though the schools were inactive during those months.
In June last year, the school paid the electricity company Rp 19.8 million, even though the school was closed for that month due to school holidays. In May 2003, the school paid an electricity bill for Rp 46 million even though the school had to frequently shut down because of the sectarian conflict in the city. Soukotta said that he had reported the irregularities to local councillors for follow up.
He also called on the electricity company not to cut electricity supplies on May 3 as it had earlier threatened. If they went ahead with it, it would be truly ironic with the nation celebrating National Education Day on May 2.
In contrast with the Ambon 4 Vocational High School, the Passo Agricultural High School said that it had not paid electricity bills amounting to Rp 69.6 million because parts of the school had been occupied by refugees since 1999, when the first large scale sectarian conflict broke out in the city.
At least 300 families occupied certain parts of the school and they used electricity freely causing electricity bills to increase inexorably, said E. Tomatala, head of internal affairs at the school. The school was given a state subsidy amounting to Rp 12 million a year, while electricity bills every year reached Rp 25 million, said Tomatala.
The electricity supply was once cut by PT PLN between February and November last year, but was restored in December last year after the government paid a Rp 60 million electricity bill.
Separately, the company's manager for Maluku and North Maluku operations, Suhud Setiabudi, said that schools had to report to PT PLN if there occurred a difference between PT PLN's employee records and the actual electricity bills.
"If the client reports it to us, then we can quickly correct the bill. This is not irregularity," he said.
As was earlier reported by The Jakarta Post, Setiabudi has threatened to cut electricity supplies to 27 schools in Ambon city because they had not paid bills for several years. The amount in arrears totaled Rp 375.4 million between 2000 and 2005.