"They just want to keep their own industries alive and leave the electricity industry in distress. They keep on wanting to be pampered and lulled to sleep by lullabies," Iskan said in a press release issued by PLN on Saturday.
Dahlan`s statement was issued two days after the chairman of Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) Sofjan Wanandi said last Thursday that the industrial sector was considering to switch business to importing goods from overseas instead of producing them in light of the power rate hike for the industrial sector.
Wanandi said producing goods domestically had become more costly due to the high price of electricity after the lifting of the 18 percent ceiling on electricity tariff hike by PLN.
Dahlan said other industries whose number is bigger have paid electricity tariff on normal rates without asking for a special treatment such as ceiling for any hike to be introduced by PLN.
"If they`ve argued the lifting of the ceiling would diminish their competitive edges, then why those similar industries that have paid electricity on normal rate in reality not beaten in competition?" he says.
Dahlan goes on to say that if the pampering of the industrialists is not opposed, then the Indonesian people would never be able to progress. It is because if the electricity industry could not progress then eventually the entire economy would be in difficulty.
He adds that the industrialists opposing the ceiling have also been voicing an impression that the entire industrial sector as a whole would be affected by the hike ceiling lifting which is not true.(*)
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
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