Friday 26 October 2012

Scarcity of Diesel in Batam


  “Solar” is what we call it in Indonesian and if it was translate for to English “Diesel” scarcity, has been Batam’s most concerning problem now. Maybe most of you don’t know Batam, it is an island, part of Indonesia, just beside Singapore, and called as an Industrial Island, which is also my beloved hometown. Actually this problem has been happening since a few months ago before I came to Malaysia to study. I am a licensed driver too and I drove a car that fuels up with diesel. So I can clearly tell you that Batam’s diesel stock is very difficult to find. I think it is enough for me to be called as a lucky person whenever I find a diesel stock in a petrol station. Until now, the scarcity of diesel has not solved by the government yet. The demand of diesel in the city is extremely high until each of the drivers who use diesel needs to queue for hours to get fuel. This problem has been getting worse and worsen by the day. In Indonesia Pertamina is the only one keep supplying on the fuel or gas, owned by the government. (about Pertamina)
This problem has the same situation, which the law of supply stated that, where if the price is low, then the quantity demanded will increase. And when price is high, quantity demanded will be decreasing. And the demand is elastic because there is another substitute such as the public transportation and the Pertamax (high quality fuel).
 In this article, the diesel supply’s price is already at the subsidized price. That’s why many people go for the cheaper one instead of buying Pertamax because government never controls who is allowed to use the subsidized diesel, and who must use the Pertamax. Yes, government did something to prevents the scarcity like limit the usage of each four-wheeled only can refuel till 200,000 rupiah (RM64) at once but it doesn’t work so efficiently because most of the kind of transport that refuel using Solar are those big trucks and big car. The solution that government provided are not efficiently useful because 200.000 rupiah's fuel only can refuel half of the fuel box. As for me, I will go to another petrol station to refuel for the diesel again at the same day because the stock of the Solar are uncertain so whenever there are stock left, I would fuel it to the max.
For the student drivers like me of course the prices on Pertamax are really expensive for us because the price is two times of the subsidies diesel or petrol. So when the fuel is rare like right now, I would prefer to take the public transport because actually Batam is not really a big, we can using public transport like mini bus to go to one mall and then move to the other mall by only paying 2000 rupiah for student and 3000 for traveler. It’s not an expensive price to spend actually and it is reachable by the students. Then if the destination is not too far, I prefer to walk and I take it as my opportunity cost and my marginal benefits will be making me healthier. But the problem is most of the people at Batam prefer to buy car than taking the public transport because it is more convenient to use car than the public transport and the price of the transportation at Batam is not so expensive. The public transport at Batam didn’t cover all areas, so it would be harder for someone who lived a little far if they take public transport.
If the government still cannot clear the problems of scarcity, at least they should do the best to re-organize the public transport as the alternatives for customers by re-building all the facilities and make it looks more attractive; of course people would use the public transport. Besides that the government should increase the tax those who drive a car with price above 150 millions rupiah so people would buy lesser car.
About the supply, yes it was written on the article that the supply has been fixed due to each area’s agreement so we cannot do anything. But I don’t think the amount that they agreed for our area is a not enough, based on my opinion, our supply actually is more than what we need. For my opinions, there are two things need to be correction.
The first one is the government should prohibit those who drive trucks to refuel at the petrol station because most of those trucks are coming from industries. Just for you know that the government cost the fuel to the industries are twice higher than the usual price because it was not subsidized. That’s why those trucks coming down and refuel at the petrol station because it is cheaper.
For the second one, the civil staff is also a big part of this problem where they use their position in the wrong direction. They do an illegal business with the “industrial island” which is helping mafia on selling the diesel to the shipyard and those industries in order to get a higher profit. As you know the price of the diesel for industry and in the petrol stations have an extremely different. These mafia sell the subsidized diesel to the industries and shipyard which are supposed to be the stock on the petrol station. As I said before, the mafia can make much more money because actually the shipyard and industries they are required to pay the twice price for the fuel they used. That’s why the amount on the petrol station decreasing and not enough for the citizen. So it would be great if this problem is cleared too.
Actually the government itself did try to caught those who did illegal things but they never repent even they were caught. Moreover, even they were caught, they can get out from the jail easily by bribing the judge.
The scarcity of diesel may cause discomfort for a lot of the drivers too. Some of them have been scolded by their boss by their for being late to work because they need to queue for solar. And many of the petrol stations put the display about out-of supply. And some of them cannot work because there is not enough petrol to take them for providing the service.
The civil staff of Indonesia should be contributing something for the country. Actually they are not lack of patriotism, they are behaving like this because too greedy for the money. Actually this is the main cause why investors afraid to invest their asset at us, too many corruption won’t result any profit for them, even more there is a chance of suffer a loss from it, I think Indonesia needs a better leader who can lead them to a better economic level where can compete with another country. Only by that we can make the world think that Indonesia is not just a simple country but a country full with talented people.
video link : 
http://batamtvnews.com/berita/8126/video-bbm-langka-hanya-1-spbu-yang-tersisa.html
main article : 
Posted by Unknown at 12:29

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