Last year there were rolling blackouts of two hours duration and sometimes twice per day across the province. This year the blackouts are three to four or even up to five or six hours two or three times a day usually averaging eight to nine hours in daily total.

The difference? Apart from the normal increases with new housing developments there is one major added user of electricity in the region, Trans-Kalla studios. Hailed at its opening in the local news as the worlds largest indoor attraction the entire place is air conditioned.

I asked a local PLN office how much effect the studio had on the current crisis and he was quick to point out that the theme park had its own generators which were used at night, when the air conditioners would need less power. While dressmakers, photocopying businesses, internet cafes and tailors sit waiting for the power to come back on and  so that they can go about earning their livelihoods the tills at the Trans-Kalla money machine are filled to overflowing.

Another strange thing is that Bosowa (owned by a Kalla in-law) is one of the largest power users at its cement plant and is also a power supplier. I can’t understand why they would not generate their own power for the cement plant and cut out the middleman, unless of course there is a dodgy deal going on with subsidized power pricing to this obviously industrial user.

The other cement plant is the Tonasa plant which is a milk cow for local government figures. Several years ago when the Philippines exported cement to Sulawesi at a price 40% lower than the two locals would sell their own products the government stepped in and banned further importation when the locals squealed about being unable to compete. Consumers be damned, take care of the rich cronies.

What is most disgusting about the current crisis is how it clearly shows that the man who made a bid for the presidency seems to have no qualms whatever about getting richer on the suffering of the ordinary people.

“The price adjustment was made due to the strengthening of the rupiah against the US dollar,” Pertamina’s spokesman Basuki Trikora Putra said.

I’m no economist but even a primary school student should be able to spot the obvious problem with that statement. If the Rupiah is strengthening it should take less of them to buy something with a dollar price base.

Not mentioned is the near doubling of crude oil prices since the government’s last reduction in price for the subsidized fuels. With an election coming up it is not time for the incumbent to raise the prices with the precedent set by the previous incumbent, Megawati.

Simple conclusion, either the spokesman is lying or he is stupid. For a national newspaper to let that sort of thing slip by unquestioned is also indicative of either collusion or incompetence by the press.

Pertamina raises non-subsidized fuels prices | The Jakarta Post