Waste Not
Nov 29th, 2006, in News, by PatungPresident Yudhoyono urges the wealthy to be frugal.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on the 26th of November that state officials and wealthy people were living “wasteful” lifestyles, and they should learn to rein in their excessive use of electricity, gas, water, telephones and food. The government’s budget was burdened by wasteful public servants and the people’s sense of justice was disturbed.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, all smiles.
A familiar theme for SBY – at the time of fuel price hikes in October of 2005 he launched a national campaign encouraging people to be more thrifty in their consumption of fuel – this time he opined:
I’m still witnessing, particularly in cities, such wasteful practices. After office hours, lights remain on as well as air conditioners.
While speaking at the Karebosi Arena in Maros, South Sulawesi, at an event marking the 26th World Food Day and the launch of the Indonesia Food Expo.
Yudhoyono went on to complain of the overuse of telephones at government offices as a symptom of excess and waste, saying that it was putting a burden of billions of rupiah on the government.
The rich were over-eaters, he added:
Don’t live as if you don’t care about other people.
Such behaviour was creating a sense of injustice among the less well-off, he warned. Many villages still had no electricity or telephone lines because of the government’s limited financial and physical resources. Even if the government continued to construct power plants in those regions, Yudhoyono said, the need would never be properly accommodated if such wasteful lifestyles were not changed.
In the end, even development and just public services will never materialize.
He urged local authorities to focus on developing villages and aiding farming folk. This was important because the country’s food was supplied by farmers who lived below the poverty line and couldn’t afford to even feed themselves.
Yudhoyono said he believed the poor situation of men on the land was due to lack of facilities, and lack of money and technology, needed to develop farms. He ordered local administrations to enact concrete programs to accelerate the economy in villages and help farmers build their businesses.
He made mention of the recent food shortages which took place in Yahukimo, Papua province, as well as in East and West Nusa Tenggara provinces, and said such problems must not be allowed to spread to other areas.
We need to take every measure to see that famine never happens again in our country.
22 Comments on “Waste Not”
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Bas says:
So from time to time this fake democrat can also say relatively intelligent things… Thumbs up Susilo!
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Rudy Hendra says:
I think SBY can’t just sit there and say this or say that.
He must take some action.
Say… educate the farmers…Don’t blame the rich.
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I think SBY’s words were true, but I think personally although we struggle our best to improve or develop the situation, the world will still get worse. People will get more evil, love will be less than before, and this condition will still continues to happen.
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Leon Suria says:
I think SBY should say more of “we’ve done this, that, and so on” rather than “we will make, construct, and so on”. Under SBY’s government, many corrupted people were arrested, which is a good thing, but SBY should do more action than saying promises.
I think the main problem of this “wasting behavior” is not always the government, actually the main problem is the behavior we have in using energy. We should conserve energy so future generation can enjoy it like we do. Don’t point other to conserve something, start with yourself so people can enjoy the facility and our limited energy.
no offense just my two cents =)
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I do agree SBY when he said the rich in Indonesia has overused their opportunity and take as much advantages as possible, so the poor suffers. The cost of energy resources that is lost is not equivalent to the payment the rich paid for their wasteful life. It means, although they paid what they have used in telephones, electricity, gas, water, telephones and food, the government still lost the energy that the poor need.
It also creates the village poorer because the government cannot afford to build up the village, because they didn’t have enough money. The problem is we should educate the President and his organization to not living a wasteful life first, then they can be an example to the rest of the residents.
I believe that this condition cannot be improved, because the world will be more evil than before, the people will be less care about other people, including the poor, and people’s love will vanish. Amen.
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David Oscar says:
Nice insight mr. president, but I disagree with you. Because if you blame the rich people as the cause of many low economic class people suffer, you’re just scapegoating the rich people. I suggest the president should clean up his own government and manage things in his own house first.
The consumption of natural resources that the government accomodate is legal for everybody in Indonesia as long as we pay. There is no limitation on that.By paying our fees and taxes, we already contribute to the government, that’s how high economic people helps the low economic people. If the president can use the government wisely, there won’t be such excrutiating hunger in papua. The money to subsidize people is being corrupted by the government too much, that’s why mr. president manage your subordinates first before you lecture other people.
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Yosua says:
As a scholar who studied economics with a profound interest, I could tell straight away that there are more problems to this issue than what Susilo mentioned. One of them is that the extra money spend are all recorded upon the country’s total expanse, or what we know as GDP. The figures rise, everyone got a boost of optimism, but actually the extra money is spent on nothing other than improving general welfare.
Thus I believe that the president is obliged to reflect upon his systems too. Say, if you live somewhere near the capital city I’m sure you have or you will experience road blockage due to Susilo or one of his boys are passing by. In a city like Jakarta, you can imagine what a 15 minutes delay may caus”¦ So, yup. We will change to the better, I hope you will follow suit Mr. President.
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Adinda says:
I agree with what our President had said about the overuse of electricity and telephone by the higher social class people (and the government people also! I think they are way too comfortable with all the POWERs that they have!). The people at the higher social class (and the government) never really cared about famine or hunger or poor people or deforestation because they are stuck in their (way too) comfortable life. Their points of view are too limited by their awesome car, awesome house and awesome money.
I know you might think that “why should we care? We pay our bills ok! We have contribute to help by paying tax on time!”,I personally think about it that way too. BUT! Think about the ENVIRONMENT!!!! If more people wanted more electricity, the government might just cut down trees somewhere in Kalimantan or cut resources from a river somewhere in Sumatera or something. They might pollute our beautiful country. Imagine Indonesia with no trees and no beautiful river, it would be like Iraq under the American’s war wouldn’t it? I mean come on people! Lets start to think out of our safe zone and think about the environment!
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Alyssia says:
I agree with some of President Susilo said. I agree that the rich are wasteful and just don’t care about other people in general, but what about the members of the government themselves? You don’t see them saving energy for other people. He can’t blame the rich if the members of his own cabinet/government doesn’t do what he says. It is even arguable that the government wastes more energy than rich people.
True, rich people are to blame in some cases. Like they make malls and other insignificant stuff that does more harm than good to the environment. Big companies burn down rain forests for their own use, but it is the government that gave them the permission to build those harmful factories, malls, and to burn down forest. The flood that happened a few months ago is the result of these mass buildings, because they destroyed out infrastructure.
So technically, the government themselves are to blame for wasting resources.
Yudhoyono said he believed the poor situation of men on the land was due to lack of facilities, and lack of money and technology, needed to develop farms.
We lack all all of those things because of the amount of corruption that happens inside the government.
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Bernardi_sph says:
I’d like to give some comment on the problem issued above from my point of view, a student’s point of view. I think that what the president is complaining about really happens in our daily life. E.g. nowadays people use telephone for something unimportant, and some people don’t turn their lights off during the day. As what the president said, it’s a waste of resources.
However, I think that it is very hypocritical for the president to blame the higher class for all these problems which messes Indonesia up. How much contribution does that have on the whole problem? Just remember the day when Bush came to Indonesia. That’s an extreme waste of money. Moreover, there are still a lot of corruptors consuming the whole country from the inside. So, I think that the president needs to deal with his cabinet first before he told his citizen to do something about it.
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Stephanie says:
Way to go for the President.
But all that we need now is a move.
We don’t need him to just sit down, blabbering about all the things that happen here in Indonesia. Do something!
And stop blaming the rich because they work for what they got.I appreciate the president for still caring about his people.
But before you blame the rich, have you ever take a look into yourself?
I think it’s better if we look into ourselves before we critize other people. -
Jessica S says:
I don’t know whether to say agree or disagree about this article.
What SBY said is right, that rich people must not waste money for unimportant things, whether for buying new cars, cruise, or another houses, which maybe they wouldn’t use it. It’s better if they start to save their money and use it for good things, such as donation for poor people, etc.But I think it’s SBY’s first sight of common rich people. All people work, but some of them succeed of finding money to fulfill their needs, and the rest of them not. The poor people didn’t work hard as much as rich people did. They gave up easily, and now they are just waiting for donation of money from rich people.
But before you blame the rich, you must see your government first. Some of them do corruption, took money which belongs to Indonesia citizens.
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Priska says:
Yes, absolutely I agree with what the President suggested about the idea
of changing the lifestyle of wasting the energy.Besides damaging the environment slowly, it also pretty much of a waste
and it is of something that we can actually save the energy, so why
are we keep wasting it for something’s useless or for their own personal
satisfaction? We need to be mature in this case
the sooner the better; meaning we
need to think for the future.Let’s put it this way; if we keep holding tight our lifestyle like now;
using energy as many as you want; what will happen
sooner or later, we will be lacking of natural resource of
water; the main resource of electricity…so, we do really need to take action and put
this in mind and start thinking mature… -
Maharani says:
Mr. SBY mentioned things like how the jetsetters and those who live way above the poverty line adopt lavish and wasteful lifestyle. Yes, it is true. I agree with what Mr. President said. There are class differences here in Indonesia. The riches are extra rich, while the poors are extremely poor. You can see that in the magazine “Indonesian Tattler”. Whenever you open one of the pages – especially around the mid-section – you can find men and women, Asian and Caucasian alike, posing in each pages with night gown and tuxedo and a glass of champagne. They seem to have parties nearly every month.
Contrast to this glamour-yet-tiring lifestyle, the farmers and those who are in the bottom of the poverty line have to work just to feed themselves. Now, there is an irony here; life is full of irony, you know. Those jetsetters did not have to toil each day – at least in term of physical work. They get money easily and automatically, feeded. However, the farmers – who toil 24/7 to feed others – could not feed themselves. To put this easy, those who are toiling are NOT prosperous while those who are not toiling ARE prosperous. See how the wording goes?
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Aluang anak Bayang says:
Pak Yudhoyono is a man of integrity. Everyone believe he has the plight of his people in his heart. Unfortunately, the top officials are all too corrupted and all too powerful for him to handle. I pray that one day he will find a way to clean up his cabinet.
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Nadia says:
Look who is speaking- the man who spent money for billions to make a helicopter pad in botanical garden for the coming of Mr. BUSH! It would be more acceptable for me, if the helicopter pad was used when BUSH was coming, but what actually happened was Bush landed on a land, not on that so-expensive-and-useless pad. Isn’t it the same as WASTING MONEY, mr. president?
Actually I do so much agree with what you said, and suggested. But then, I disagree with what you did. If you want to give suggestions to you people, then you have to show them good examples first, then I believe they will follow what you had done. How cold your people follow you, you are not even consistent about what you said, and it’s not really a good thing.
So mr. president, look at your mirror, then see what have you said, and reflect what have you done, then if you think you had already done good things that the others could follow from you, you could start teaching people those good things.
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KeziA says:
Hello Mr. President!
I do agree with “Changing Lifestyle” program that you’ve said.
As a 17year-old girl, I’m still way to go. I also concern with the future condition that we are facing. Even now we do have many natural problems.Yes it’s true that most of rich people just responsible for paying the taxes and their need, but they don’t care about the consequence in this world for their next generation. However, it’s not the only factor. The government in Indonesia can’t control and develop the natural resources as well. I hope you don’t just construct the Changing Lifestyle program, but you and your governments start solve the crucial problems.
It’s EASY to SPEAK than to ACT. You can do it, Mr.President!
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Karania says:
I do agree with Mr. President but what I read is different with what I see (the fact).
For me, SBY has a good vision; but the problem is it’s all just a word and saying is easier than doing the real action. And I haven’t seen anything done like what he said until now. I mean, before SBY wants his words to be followed by other people, SBY should do it himself and into his officials because he is the president, he should become the example for the Nation.President Yudhoyono urges the wealthy to be frugal.
A few months ago I heard that SBY bought expensive notebooks for his official. ARE THOSE IMPORTANT? Why buy the expensive one when the standard one is good enough. Thus the extra money can be used to do other things that more important. WHERE IS THE URGE TO BE FRUGAL? A lot of people suffer out there while the government wasting the budget for the expensive “useless” notebooks.
I think it’s better to fix himself (SBY) and his government first then he can give his lecture on everything that he has done.
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Yohanes says:
First of all, some of SBY’s words are true in my opinion. Most of the rich and government officials live wasteful life. Electricity is one of the example, the one that’s used excessively without purpose. The rich are living in well developed region, well, they don’t get any difficulties in getting what they want. But, think of others the poor need money. Instead of wasting fuel to be wasted, it is better to be allocated for the electricity generator for the poor areas. Second thing, I agree with your (SBY) develop -ment vision, it is a contradiction to see the farmers who make foods for the rich don’t get richer.
However, Mr. President, we are tired of hearing your speech. The content is always good and showing the effort to give better future for the country. But, look back and see at your back-door, there are people behind you that make the whole people in Indonesia suffer. Corruption, you couldn’t count how many of your people have corrupted the money that belongs to the citizens. Therefore, think first about your weaknesses and act upon what you think is right, don’t just speak in public. -
Dragonwall says:
You wouldn’t find farmers driving Mercedez”¦ except for Ki Gendeng Pamungkas
You should visit Madura to see what is it really like. These Madurese visit a showroom mobil, they tend to bring in money by the karung..ha..ha..no joke. And they are pemulung and rongsokkan.
For the rich to be frugal seem mission impossible. Just imagine going out to dinner with the family amidst high cost of living, how much will it cost?
Even cooking and eating at home won’t cost less after all.
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Lets be very honest. When the rich they earned it so they have the right to spend. Whereas the poor were the victims of corrupt officials, not rich business people.
What they deserve, were taken away from them, not the rich.
The rich did not deprive them of any benefits set forth by the government. Bulog is one and others like Menteri Kesejahtera, Menteri Lingkungan, Menteri Kehutanan, Menkum HAM, Bupati, etc…
If even the President were to say such a comment without being able to really see with the heart and hear with the eyes. Then he is as good as being a puppet. such comment does not win praise for him in the next election. Solving the solution will.
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I think President Yudhoyono needs to clean his public servants and teach them not to steal from the people, and stop minding other people business.
You wouldn’t find farmers driving Mercedez… except for Ki Gendeng Pamungkas.
Farmers are meant to be farmers and thats that… But there are still hope to educate the people thats a fact.