Govt will Review Electricity Hike

Last month, the government announced that there will be an electricity hike of 10% to 18% starting 1 July 2010.

Although the electricity hike excludes households using less than 90 Watts of electricity, but this decision has been widely protested especially by  the industries that stated that the increase is actually many times higher than the average 15% declared by the government.

For example, the association of textile industries and association of furniture industries alleged that the increase would be more than 40%. They said that if the electricity hike is not delayed or revised they would not be able to make and sell products that would compete with cheap products freely imported from China. Which means that they would have to stop business operation and more than 10 million their workers would be out of job.

In response to the above protests, the Coordinating Minister of Economy Hatta Rajasa (a technical engineer) announced that the government will review the electricity hike and limit it to18% max. for industries.

Although I am glad that the government decided to reconsider the electricity hike rate, however I am very sad that the hike has not been made based on careful and accurate calculations that it has to be reconsidered only 2 weeks after its implementation.

Here are some related articles that I quoted from The Jakarta Globe :

-  Industries Shocked By Steep Electricity Hikes
-  Govt Will Rethink Electricity Hike Rate
-  Indonesian Government Puts Cap On Electricity Rate Hike