Y2K team sets up alert post

JAKARTA (JP): Urging the public to go about their business as usual on New Year's Day, the government said on Monday it had taken precautions against possible computer glitches affecting public services at the turn of the millennium.

J.B. Kristiadi, deputy chairman of Indonesia's Y2K team, said it was a blessing in disguise that Indonesia had not come to depend too much on computers.

"Many of our systems are still run manually, so the Y2K bug won't affect us that much. As far as the government is concerned, it will be 'business as usual' on the day," he said during a discussion on Indonesia's readiness for the Y2k bug.

The Y2K bug is a problem that is predicted to strike many computer systems in the year 2000. Computer chips that have not been updated could mistake '00' as 1900. The error could create problems ranging from power outages to billing errors.

Indonesia has been cited abroad as a potential problem area because it has made seemingly few preparations compared to many other countries this past year.

Kristiadi said that in spite of its confidence, the government had established a national alert post to monitor six areas deemed as particularly critical to public services.

The areas are; air traffic controls at the country's airports, the entire banking transaction system, the telephone system, power management, road and rail signaling system and gasoline supply.

A seventh area, the health sector, particularly hospitals, has been dropped from the critical list because the government said it had fully passed the test.

The post, located on Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat No. 17, will be monitoring events at the turn of the millennium on Dec. 31 and on the first days of the New Year.

"If something does go wrong and affects the whole country, the alert post will run contingency plans and have full authority to act on behalf of the government," Djamhari Sirat, who heads the post, said.

Decisions will be made by a board led by Minister of Communication Agum Gumelar, who is also the chief of Indonesia's Y2K team.

Taking part in the discussion were representatives from public service companies in the critical fields. They included Bank of Indonesia (central bank), Garuda Indonesia (airline), PT Kereta Api (railway), PT PLN (electricity), PT Telkom Indonesia (telecommunication) and PT Pertamina (oil and gas).

Kristiadi said only 20 of the 167 commercial banks in Indonesia were prone to the Y2K bug. By the start of this month, all of them had declared their readiness to face the millennium.

In the capital market, the 50 percent of participants prone to the problem have also passed readiness tests.

The bug would not affect share transactions because the market still relied largely on manual operations, he said.

The Bank of Indonesia has printed more money, raising the amount of cash on Dec. 31 to Rp 100 trillion (US$14 billion) as a precaution, according to Inding Fajar from the central bank.

"The bank will stay open on Dec. 31," Inding said.

Automated teller machines should operate as usual and all commercial banks should reopen on Monday, Jan. 3, he said.

Inding stressed depositors should not worry about their money, saying that banks had installed a four-phase security system in storing data.

"It is impossible for the bank to lose the data," he said, addressing a common public concern that has raised the prospect of people withdrawing their cash in panic before year's end.

Inding said banks were prepared to deal with large withdrawals, should they occur.

Kristiadi also assured the public that there should be sufficient fuel on New Year's Day and thereafter, as Pertamina had stocked up on a 28 day supply.

Giving more details, Sugito Syarif from Pertamina said the state oil company had 16 days worth of supply in 164 depots, five days supply in tankers and seven days supply in oil refineries.

The nation's air traffic control system poses the biggest challenge because it is heavily computerized.

Kristiadi said Soekarno-Hatta in Jakarta and Ngurah Rai in Denpasar, the country's two busiest airports, had passed readiness tests. Other air traffic control systems in the country had been tested for their Y2K readiness, he said.

As a precaution, however, there would be a 15 minute gap between each flight's departure and arrival at these airports instead of the usual five minutes.

"Garuda will keep most of its scheduled flights on Dec. 31. Besides our airport is not that busy," Kristiadi said, referring to Jakarta's airport.

Kereta Api said it had tested all rail signal systems several times to be sure that everything works on Jan. 1.

Edward Aritonang of PLN said the electricity company had set up various contingency plans, including preparing back-up power supplies in case of outages.

Telkom assured the public its fully computerized billing system would work.

Kristiadi said no country in the world could be completely sure that it would remain unaffected by the Y2K bug, and therefore the government could not be held legally accountable for a breakdown of services due to Y2K computer glitches.

However, companies who advertised themselves as Y2K compliant are exposing themselves to potential legal suits.

Agus Pambagio of the Indonesian Consumer Agency said his organization has collected all Y2K compliance ads by companies to prepare for possible litigation if their claims proved to be false.(04)