TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) chairman Tulus Abadi believes that discounts on online taxi should not be seen as a problematic issue.

“As long as discounted tariff offered by operators or partners is still in between lower tariff limit (TBB) and upper tariff limit (TBA),” said Tulus in a written statement, Thursday, June 13.

Tulus made the statement in response to the Transportation Ministry’s plan of banning discounts to support healthy business competition and prevent predatory pricing. The ministry earlier stated it would only limit discounts instead of prohibiting.

“So the discount cannot be allowed if it’s set below TBB. No problem on discounts as long as it’s still in the range of TBB-TBA because it is one of the factors to attract consumers,” he added.

The problematic issue, he opined, is when operators provide discounts beyond the set limit because it may lead to unhealthy competition and predatory pricing.

According to the YLKI chairman, the government has a task to monitor the tariff and impose a sanction to operators offering discounts below the recommendation.

Tulus mentioned that the plan to ban discounts on online transportation possibly resulted from the government's confusion in managing the service.

“The ministerial regulation is already adequate to manage tariff affairs. The ministry should not have to take further moves in regulating discounts,” he said, asserting that the government should instead tighten regulations on minimum service standard, especially in relation to safety.

Therefore, YLKI asked operators and its partners to consistently comply with the regulations so discounts on online taxi would not surpass TBB. Tulus also hoped the ministry to be committed to monitoring the implementation of TBA and TBB as well as service standard.

MUHAMMAD HENDARTYO

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