Protest from Hotels and Malls

"Help Batam, Help FTZ, Help Indonesia, tarif PLN Batam naik 41% - 53%. Mencekik usaha hotel & mall. Mengancam PHK di Batam."

It literally translates, "help Batam, help FTZ. Help Indonesia. PLN tariff increased to 41% - 53%. Strangelling hotels and malls business. Threatened mass unemployement in Batam."

We can see easily this banners in front of most hotels and malls in Batam. The policy of PLN to increase electricity cost to 41% - 53% invites protests from hotels and malls owners. They claimed that they can't afford to pay PLN due to this increment. And PLN have temporally cutted off electricity to 18 users.

The secretrary of PT. PLN Batam, I Wayan Jasmin said that cut off was a hard decission to make. The electricity bill which has already snowballed to a very big sum is a major problem to the company cash flow that can not be left unattended.

The general election had just finished. Let's just hope that the new legislative council will have a more favourable policy to the business and people.