Watchdog Calls for Evaluation of 35,000 MW Electricity Project

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta-The Executive Director of Energy Watch Indonesia Ferdinand Hutahaean has asked President Joko Widodo to be wary of state-owned electricity company’s (PLN) failure to execute the 35,000 megawatt power plant construction program. He said that the PLN seemed to be confused and lacked clear roadmap to complete the program.

“It has made Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry furious and planned to cancel the program with the PLN as it saw signs of failure,” Ferdinand said in a written statement, Monday, July 25, 2016.

Ferdinand has called on the government to evaluate the performance of PLN’s President Director Sofyan Basir. “Sofyan Basir should be dismissed and be replaced because he is the wrong man in the wrong place.”

Earlier, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said had asked the PLN to keep in track with the government policy in the efforts to provide electricity from 2016 to 2025. The Energy Ministry had prepared regulations to facilitate investment in the 35,000 MW program, namely the Energy Ministry Regulation No. 1/2015 and the Energy Ministry Regulation No. 9/2015.

The PLN, however, considered the policies not supportive of the company.

Sudirman had directly questioned Sofyan Basir’s antics who often expresses his dissatisfaction in mass media. “We are the ‘mother’ who gave birth to the PLN. We bore, fed [the PLN], but we have been hurt in front of the public. Don’t protest against your mother, it’s a sin,” he said Friday in Jakarta.

GHOIDA RAHMAH