Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Probolinggo | Mon, 11/24/2008 12:18 PM
It has been eight years since PT Jawa Power and PT Yeoh Tiong Lay (YTL), German and Malaysian investors supplying power to the Jawa-Bali grid, built a junior high school in Paiton village, Probolinggo, where their power plant is located.
And now they have built a senior high school.
Jawa Power president director Joachim Stender said the building of the two schools was part of the German company's commitment to empowering society in Indonesia in general, and in the regency in particular.
"We are considering providing scholarships for talented graduates to continue their study at the Swiss German University in Bumi Serpong Damai in Tangerang in the coming academic year and that is why the university rector is here," he told The Jakarta Post after the inauguration of the Tunas Luhur Senior High School here Friday.
The school was officially opened by German Ambassador to Indonesia Paul Freiherr von Maltzahn and Probolinggo Regent Hasan Aminuddin.
Also attending the inauguration ceremony were deputy environment minister Gempur Adnan, PT Siemens Indonesia's chief executive Wolfgang Hofmann and Swiss German University rector Peter Pscheid.
Joachim said his company had spent US$1 million building the two schools and financing training programs to improve the competence of the schools' teaching staff.
"Alhamdulillah (Thank God), the Bhakti Pertiwi Junior High School is now ranked 10th as the best and preferred junior high school in East Java," he said.
"The new senior high school is equipped with chemistry, language and other laboratories and two units of libraries are expected to follow suit in the coming years."
Joachim said the annual amount allocated to the company's CSR program was "flexible depending on the company's financial capability and the regency's needs".
"The education improvement is only part of our CSR program and Jawa Power has also participated in the handling of floods in the province and other disasters in other provinces, including the 2004 tsunami in Aceh and Nias and the earthquake in Yogyakarta," he said.
The 2007 limited corporations law requires large companies to allocate at least 1 percent of their annual profit to finance their CSR programs in their own area.
Regent Hasan Aminuddin said he appreciated Jawa Power's commitment to education in the regency and hoped the company would continue with the establishment of a prestigious university to improve the quality of the regency's workforce.
"Jawa Power should establish not only school buildings but also take an active role in running international standard schools to produce skilled graduates to fill all positions in the power plant and other industries in the regency," he said.
The two schools are jointly managed by Jawa Power and the regency administration through the Tunas Luhur Foundation.
Separately, Vijayan Gopalakrishnan, operations manager of PT YTL, which fully operates the power plant and owns 35 percent of shares in Jawa Power, said the power plant employed 320 permanent workers and 200 contract-based ones, 99 percent of whom were locals. The company thus complied with Indonesian law in running the coal-fired plant, he said.
"We are open to environmental and labor audits and the press and no waste is disposed of into the environment before it is properly treated in our costly waste treatment plants," he said.
The Paiton II coal-fired power station, built on a build-operate basis, produces 1,220 Megawatts and supplies it to the Java-Bali grid as requested by state power company PT PLN.
