Jakarta – Water customers represented by the People's Coalition for the Right to Water (KRUHA) complained Tuesday about the service provided by the city's two water companies. They urged the Jakarta administration to end its partnership with foreign firms PT Palyja and PT Thames PAM Jaya (TPJ).
"PT Palyja and PT Thames PAM Jaya simply haven't been performing well. The problem with the water shortages in Jakarta lies in their bad management, but instead they blame the dry season's effect on Jatiluhur Dam, where we get about 80 percent of our water supply," said Hamong Santono, KRUHA's coordinator.
"Those companies promised that they would deal with the water shortages when they signed their deals with city water operator PAM Jaya but they have failed to do so," Hamong told The Jakarta Post.
He said people living in Pejaten Timur, South Jakarta, had not had access to piped water since Thursday. "I had to take a bath at my office because there was no water being piped to my house in Pasar Minggu," Hamong said.
A tenant of the Hilton Residences apartments told the Post that last weekend residents had had no access to water from 10 a.m. Saturday until 11 a.m. Sunday. Hamong added that there had been no water supplied to the Kuningan Apartment on Monday.
He said that while the coalition acknowledged Jatiluhur Dam was running at below capacity due to the dry season, the water shortage was still the problem of the companies.
"What we cannot understand is why the two companies couldn't anticipate this problem. If those two private companies could have fixed about 20 percent of the shortages, about 20 percent of city dwellers wouldn't be having problems getting water."
Hamong said a failure to fix water pipes could be the reason for the huge water leakages the city's plumbing system suffered. "Personnel from PT Pam Jaya told me that the pipes have been in use since colonial times," he said.
KRUHA has reported that as of August 2005, clean water supplies from PT Palyja reached around 145,976,650,000 liters of water a year, with a leakage rate of 46.85 percent, while PT TPJ supplied 230,020,870,000 liters of water and lost 47.88 percent.
"Besides technical leakages, there are also 'leakages' in their administration. For example the companies often forget to charge some customers," Hamong said.
TPJ spokeswoman Devy A. Yheanne, said Jatiluhur Dam was running out of water during the dry season. "The unprocessed water supply has decreased dramatically, to about 24 to 25 percent from Jatiluhur Dam," she told the Post.
Jatiluhur Dam delivered 65 percent of its unprocessed water supply to TPJ and 35 percent to Palyja, she said.
Palyja spokeswoman Ratna Indrayani said the water shortages were the only reason for the poor service KRUHA had complained about.
"Our supply has decreased by 50 percent. PT Palyja normally gets about 6,200 liters of water each second (from the dam). For the last month we have been getting only about 3,000 liters each second," Ratna said.