Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama says he has instructed the state-owned power company (PLN) to cut off the electricity to areas with illegal settlements, such as those along river banks and under bridges.
The request was made by Ahok to the managing director of PLN, Sofyan Basir, when the CEO visited City Hall last Friday. Ahok said supplying electricity to illegal settlements was not in line with the city government program to curb slums.
“If [PLN] supplies electricity to them, in addition to losing [money], the company will become known for adding to the slums of Jakarta,” Ahok said at City Hall on Monday, as quoted by Kompas.
In the meeting, PLN promised to increase the capacity of the electricity network in Jakarta to 3,000 megawatts. Ahok said the additional capacity is needed to accommodate the Asian Games in 2018 and the eventual operations of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system in Jakarta.
Ahok said those concerns were in addition to Jakarta’s already high and surging need for electricity due to an increasing number of apartment complexes.
“We’ve calculated the electrical network’s capacity until 2019. The capacity of electricity in Jakarta has to keep growing because we want to add a lot more apartments and residential superblocks,” Ahok said.
