Posted on January, 28 2005

The PowerSwitch! campaign is gaining ground all over the world and has now also reached Indonesia. WWF Indonesia launched its PowerSwitch! campaign on Tuesday, January 25th. 

Participants of a public forum in Jakarta discussed the last six years of power sector restructuring in Indonesia and identified a lack of transparency, accountability and public participation. These are the key elements of Good Governance implementation as demanded by WWF Indonesia. 

A new WWF study presented at the campaign launch came to the same result. The Directorate General of Electricity and Energy Utilization gave a statement in favour of public participation and asked the Indonesian public to play an active role in monitoring the performance of PT. PLN (Persero), a state-owned monopoly. 

Company representatives, consumer organisations, partner NGOs and a number of journalists attended the discussion forum. A member of the Indonesian parliament promised that the House of Representatives will offer more opportunities for public participation. 

Through the Indonesian press a broader public got informed about the event and the PowerSwitch! campaign the day after. 

With the launch WWF Indonesia has also established Energy Troopers, a group of well-educated and concerned Indonesian electricity consumers. This mailing list based community held a first meeting in early January and made a commitment to spread the PowerSwitch! message. 

The list of Energy Troopers is full of interesting characters: One member works for one of the private universities in Jakarta and wants to implement energy efficiency activities on campus. Another member is an expert for renewable energy. 

Some other members are working for major Indonesian media. Together the Energy Troopers will act as the core group of an urban community that supports PowerSwitch! in Indonesia.