Poor Indonesians hit by fuel prices
Updated
Not long ago poor Indonesians lost the government fuel subsidy and now they face extra costs as the fuel price soars.
Presenter: Geoff Thompson
Speakers: Maenah, Indonesia resident; Purmono Yusgiantori, Indonesian Energy Minister
(Sound of busy traffic)
GEOFF THOMPSON: Darting in between the 900 new motorcycles and 260 new cars which enter Jakarta's already traffic-choked streets every day. The noisy pollution spewing Bajajs are becoming something of an anachronism, but follow one of these three-wheeled taxis home and you find stories very much consistent with the tough economic times in which the price of fuel and food has soared.
Here in east Jakarta, dozens of Bajaj drivers and their families live together in a boarding house where they rent both the roofs over their heads and the vehicles that they drive.
The men drive the Bajaj and the women work as maids for the wealthier neighbours they refer to as Orang Gedungan or "the people who live in buildings".
(Sound of Maenah speaking)
"We used to make $2.50 a day but now we sometimes don't even make enough to pay for the Bajaj's rental" say Maenah who is the 40-year-old mother to a Bajaj driver’s five children, most of whom have been left behind in their home village four hours drive away because they can't afford schooling in the city.
None of the families here receive the government's cash handouts last week, which were designed to off-set an average 28.7 per cent increase in the cost of fuel because they had no idea it was even going on.
That means for Maenah's family and their friends, the cost of working, if not living, has just jumped by about a third.
(Sound of people protesting)
All week the fuel price hike has been answered with protests on the streets of Indonesia as its government announced a protest of its own by pulling out of OPEC.
Energy Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro:
PURNOMO YUSGIANTORO: We are unhappy with this high oil price, especially when they have heavy subsidies.
GEOFF THOMPSON: OPEC traditionally has an interest in keeping oil prices high. No longer a net oil exporter, Indonesia and particularly its poor, have joined the long queue of consumers more interested in the price of oil coming down.
