Ulterior motive?

Ulterior motive?

From Merdeka

State-owned telecommunications company PT Telkom successfully posted a big profit of trillions of rupiah in the 1997/1998 fiscal year. The company has also stated publicly that telecommunications rates in Indonesia are relatively low compared with other countries, ignoring comparisons of the per capita income in Indonesia with the other countries.

Now Telkom has raised its rates, retroactive to Feb. 1, despite comments by Telkom's officers referred to above. The new tariff of zone III, for example, is now Rp 1,545 per minute, an increase of 3,196.55 percent per minute over the old rate of Rp 145 for three minutes. Of course, Telkom may raise the rates but it must give plausible arguments for the move and also be transparent about the increase. It is strange that the tariff increase on April 1, 1998, was discussed at the Telkom headquarters and not in the House of Representatives.

Now where did legislators, the government and Telkom officials discuss the Feb. 1 tariff increase?

Cases of illegal use of customer telephone lines, rampant in the late 1970s and 1980s, have never been brought to court. The community remains suspicious that Telkom employees and officials and private or government companies conspired in the matter, or that certain Telkom employees or officials were individually involved to cover for the funds they siphoned off. Maybe relevant are Law No. 5/1964 on telecommunications and Law No. 3/1998 -- particularly the first and second clauses of Article 36 on illegal use of a telephone line which states a penalty of four years in jail or Rp 40 million fine.

In fact, the problem can be solved by using a meter system like the one adopted by the state electricity company PLN. The charges incurred on the installation of a telephone meter may be jointly borne by a customer and Telkom, or perhaps by Telkom alone. Spending money on the telephone meter installation would be much better than having to spend money on telephone bills made much higher because of unknown and untraceable reasons.

Even the late Soesilo Soedarman, former minister of tourism, post and telecommunications, once suggested the adoption of the meter system, a practice he learned about during his tenure as Indonesian envoy in the United States. Unfortunately, rampant practices of corruption, collusion and nepotism during the New Order era never allowed his excellent idea to materialize.

HERLINA

Jakarta