Saturday, January 14, 2012

Credit Card Limitations

There are so many people in Indonesian who love credit cards.

According to news report, there are 14.3 million credit cards holders among our country's 240 million population.

This is obvious because credit cards provide possibility for people to live conveniently i.e. it provide them the chance to buy things by credit.

The bad thing about credit card is that it drove many of its holders into very consumptive people, it makes them buy things they want even though their financial position is weak.

I know some people whose monthly salary only enable them to pay the minimum payment limit i.e. 10% of the total credit card expenditures, therefore they facing trouble settling the credit and interest.

The most sadistic case happened last year when a holder of credit card issued by Citibank was beaten to death by debt collectors at the major U.S bank's Jakarta office.

In order to prevent credit card crisis, the Central Bank i.e. Bank Indonesia, issued regulation No. 14/2/PBI/2012 regarding Credit Card Transaction Procedures, among others as follows :
1) Minimum age of a holder is 21 (currently 17) years old.
2) Minimum salary of a holder is Rp 3 Million, maximum credit limit is 3 times the amount of salary.
3) Those who have salary below Rp 10 Million may only have two credit cards
4) Those who have salary above Rp 10 Million may get higher credit limit from the bank

The new regulation will become effective on 1 January 2013, with a two years transition period for banks to adjust their existing regulation with the said new regulation.

I hope that this new regulation would prevent any credit card crisis in the future.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Please keep Aceh Peaceful

The signing of the Helsinski Peace Agreement on 15 August 2005 has ended many years of violence in Indonesia's eastern most Province of Aceh, and since then people in the province have been enjoying a peaceful life.

This peaceful situation was confirmed after Irawadi Yusuf, an independent candidate supported by former separatist GAM, won the Governor election on December 2006, and the Aceh Party (reincarnation of GAM) won the provincial parliamentary elections in 2009.

And then there was a verdict of the Constitutional Court on December 2010 which determined that independent candidates may be nominated as candidates in the 2011/2012 Governor and Regents elections. The Court's reason was to provide opportunity for not-political party backed candidates to be nominated, and the fact that more than 50 % of the Regents and Governor were independent candidates.

This verdict was protested by the Aceh Party who said that independent candidates can only be nominated in the 2006 election, after that all candidates should be nominated by political parties.
The general election commission plan to implement the Constitutional Court's verdict, therefore the Aceh Party said that it will boycott the elections.

In recent months, there has been lots of shootings that have killed 13 people and wounding 13 others. According to the Coordinating Minister of Politics, Laws and Security General Djoko Suyanto this violence is related to the Regional Election in Aceh.


Due to this violence, there is a possibility that the regional election in Aceh will be postponed.

Considering the above, I hope that the central government in Jakarta, the general election commission and all the parties in Aceh would seat down together and find the best solution acceptable by all the political parties, including the Aceh party.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Weekend in Jambi

Last Saturday and Sunday I visited Jambi, a province in the southern part of the Sumatera Island.

This was my first visit to mainland Sumatera. Many years ago I visited Batam, an island on on the province of Riau on the eastern part of Sumatera, as a transit point for several visits to Singapore.

I left Jakarta at 9.40 am with two of my old law school friends i.e Arief and Phillip, flying on Lion Air, and arrived at Jambi City airport at 10.50 am. We were picked at the airport by a driver of Chairul, another old friend at law school.

Chairul held a wedding ceremony for his eldest daughter i.e. Mirna on Saturday at 4 pm, and he arranged that we stay at the Ratu Hotel next to the Ratu Convention Center where the wedding party was held on Sunday 11 am - 3 pm.

As soon as we have put our luggage at the hotel, we took a taxi to Jamtos (Jambi Town Square)  shopping mall for lunch. Later in afternoon we took a taxi to a place on the side of the Batanghari River which seems to be a place where people of the city of Jambi entertained themselves. We ate roasted Corn cob and Padang Satay.

In the evening we walked to nearby Ramayana Shopping mall which looked like malls in Jakarta with Hypermart, Kentucky Fried Chicken, A&W, etc.

We returned to the hotel using three Ojek i.e. motor-cycle taxi, one for each of us. It was still early so we spent 3 hours at hotel's Karaoke until 2 am.
                                                          
On Sunday morning we have breakfast at the hotel after that we went to the wedding party at 11.30 am. Chairul was happy when we shook hands with him, his wife, the bride and groom and parents.
The party itself was a big fat wedding party with a whole lots of guests, organizing committee, delicious food, etc.

At 1.30 pm, we returned to the hotel, packed our bags, took a car taxi to look for souvenirs on our way to the airport. Our plane departed at around 6 pm and arrived in Jakarta at 7 pm.

The trip was enjoyable, but it would be much better if better public transportation are available i.e, argo-metered taxi and minibuses with better routes. Besides, more arts and souvenir shops should also be available in the city. This are important if Jambi wants to attract more tourists from other provinces and other countries.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Weight Reduction

Like most people, before or during the changing of a year to another year I made resolutions on basic things that I want to achieve on the following year.

And one of my resolutions for the year 2012 is to reduce my Weight from 90+ Kg.  to around 78 Kg. For which purpose, I am going to step up daily physical exercise e.g gymnastic, seat up, push up. I will also control consumption of food among others by eating less Rice and Meat, and eat more Fish, Vegetables, and Fruits. Moreover I will also be Fasting maybe one or two days in a week.
 
Based on my previous experience, I am aware it would not be easy to achieve this resolution, however considering that I really want to reduce my weight and therefore live more healthily, I am sure that I can make it.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year 2012

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones.
Let us pray to God and hope that 2012 would be better than 2011.

PS: I hope that I can up date this blog as frequently as in the past.

Yours sincerely,
Harry Nizam