PLN cut electricity supplies to 50,000 customers
Monday, October 9 2000 - 05:00 AM WIB
PLN is compelled to cut electricity supplies to around 50,000 of its customers, mostly household customers, to save its cash flow problems, according to PLN marketing director Eddie Wdiono.
"We are compelled to do this, simply to save our cash flow problems," Eddie said over the weekend.
He added that PLN had no money to finance new investment, and even to finance its operation, it had to manage its cash flow carefully. Otherwise, it would stop operation. Eddie noted that if such a financial situation in PLN continued for long and new investment in electricity generation was nil, there would be electricity crisis in Java and Bali in year 2003.
"We don't know yet where to get fund for new investment," Eddie said.
Nevertheless, Eddie added that PLN would do its best to avoid electricity black-out by cooperating with Malaysia electricity company, Tenaga Nasional, to build new power generations using used machinery from Malaysia.
"The second-hand equipment will be used to tackle problems of electricity black outs in Palembang and its surrounding areas," he said. To help keep PLN's afloat, Eddie called on large customers to pay their electricity bills fully, in accordance with the new electricity tariffs.
Eddie noted that several large businesses still owed a significant amount of electricity debts to PLN. In West Java alone, the amount of debts owed by industrial customers totaled more than Rp 100 billion.
Nevertheless, he said that the number of industries not paying their electricity bills fully were actually not many. In West Java, for instance, out of 1,898 companies in the tariff category of I-3, only 42 companies could not accept the new tariffs, and out of 24 large industries in the category of I-4, only 2 companies had not paid their bills fully.
For Jakarta area, the number of I-3 industrial customers totaled 1,826 companies, of which only 5 companies did not heed the new tariffs. But there were still three companies - out of five I-4 customers - that did not pay the bills fully.
In Central Java, only one company in the I-3 category and one company in the I-4 category had not paid their bills fully. East Java had the same record as the Central Java did. (*)