Letter: Kalla and gas canisters

I myself, and countless other people in my neighborhood, are the fortunate users of city gas, and have enjoyed safe cooking for decades. What I am now becoming increasingly apprehensive about is what might happen in millions of moderate- and low-income households in the coming Ramadan fasting month and also during the Idul Fitri holidays.

Picture the following scene: It is the fasting month, and millions of fasting families still have some trouble getting used to the changed schedules of having meals and sleeping. A mother, already lacking adequate sleep and rest, gets up at 2:00 a.m. in the morning to prepare the Sahur pre-dawn meal for her husband and children. Uh-oh…the 3 kilogram gas canister she uses for cooking is empty. Still fuzzy with sleep, and mindful of the fact that she must make haste in preparing the meal, she gets a new gas canister and rather hurriedly connects the regulator to it.

If she hasn’t done this properly, the erstwhile peaceful neighborhood will be suddenly startled by a deafening explosion renting the air. Several people are severely wounded, some of the victims die on the spot, a conflagration may occur, or the house the accident occurred in collapses. And if this calamity is the only one happening in that deeply disturbed neighborhood on that particular morning, it might be considered fortunate.

Really, it doesn’t take a psychic to predict the not-so-small probability that many people from low-income families will have the misfortune of not being able to properly celebrate Idul-Fitri, due to the accidents and even deaths caused by these latent bombs in their kitchens.

Bapak Jusuf Kalla, you were deeply involved in the energy conversion policy during your tenure as vice president, and therefore you should also shoulder a large part of the responsibility for the calamitous results of this policy.

Please show your responsibility by courageously stating that you also shoulder the blame, and by concrete action. Simply offering advice on dealing with accidents related to gas cylinders is not enough, and is even insulting to your fellow Indonesians.

Tami Koestomo
Bogor