State firms asked to sell stickers

State firms asked to sell stickers

JAKARTA (JP): State-owned corporations appointed to sell
stickers to help fund the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in October
should be careful to protect the public, the director of the
Indonesian Consumer Organization (YLKI) said Saturday.

YLKI's director, Zoemrotin K.S, said that state-owned firms,
including PT Telkom, electricity firm PLN and water supplier PAM,
must have a clear period in which they sell the stickers which
cost Rp 1,000 each.

"For instance, there are five million telephone users in
Indonesia so there will be Rp 5 billion in a month collected by
Telkom. The other firms will have more. So, there's a great
possibility there will be extra funds," she said Saturday.

Last month the government announced that the sticker selling
program would be extended for four months, starting July.

The original sticker selling program started in March and
ended mid-June.

YLKI has been flooded with complaints about the Rp 1,000
stickers because people were forced to pay for them when they
paid there electricity, telephone and water bills, making it
impossible for people to refuse to buy the stickers.

Several cinemas, restaurants, hotels and toll roads also
charged people for the stickers.

Consumers did not seem to have the right not to pay for the
stickers, Zoemrotin said.

PT Angkasa Rona Graha, a private firm controlled by one of
President Soeharto's sons, Bambang Trihatmodjo, had been
authorized to sell the stickers to raise Rp 40 billion ($16
million) to help stage the Rp 105 billion SEA Games.

But over three months the company raised only Rp 3.7 billion -
not enough to finance the building and refurbishment of sports
facilities.

PT Angkasa Rona Graha was then stripped of its authority to
sell the stickers and only the state-owned firms are now allowed
to raise money from sticker sales. (icn)