PLN to disconnect electricty power of 24,453 households in Cirebon

Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Cirebon

State electricity company PT PLN in Cirebon plans to disconnect the power of 24,453 households that have refused to pay their bills for three consecutive months in protest against rotating blackouts.

"We will cut off their power this week if they fail to settle their accounts," Zaenal Abidin, PLN's marketing and business manager, announced over the weekend.

He claimed that PLN had suffered Rp 2.1 billion (US$2.47 million) in losses due to the delinquent customers.

"We are forced to take such a measure, otherwise we would suffer more financial losses," Zaenal argued.

The company also complained that 83,000 customers paid their bills late over the last three months which amounts to Rp 7.2 billion.

"The situation is not conducive for us. We need timely payments to cover our expensive operational costs," Zaenal said.

PT PLN Cirebon has also suffered Rp 11 billion in financial losses due to the loss of 16.4 percent of power for consumers in the last three months.

The loss is due to, among other things, corrupt officials who manipulate customers' power usage records at either the customers' residences or at PLN offices.

Zaenal said that PT PLN had decided to hire students of religious boarding schools in West Java to accompany its officials to check customers' meters, in a bid to minimize leakages in the company.

"The students will be hired to oversee the officers. We expect to see no more manipulation and collusion between officers and customers," he said, adding that the students would be trained for the job.

Zaenal did not say how many students would be hired, but said that they would be deployed to cover 790,701 customers in the regency.

Last month, the power to 30,000 PLN customers in Central Lampung, East Lampung, Way Kanan and Metro was disconnected for nonpayment. The customers were also protesting rotating blackouts and the resulting damage to appliances.

The company said it was forced to introduce rotating blackouts because of a reduced power supply from hydropower plants due to the severe drought.

The PLN Lampung office, which has been forced to buy 12 megawatts of power per month from a private shrimp breeding company in South Sumatra, claimed that it had been running short of power to meet the sharply increasing demand in the province.