Fuel Price Hikes Badly Affect Aborers: PKS

Jakarta (Antara) - Increase in the subsidized fuel price will badly affect laborers because their wage rise last year will be meaningless, Indra, the head of the Farmers and Fishermen Advocacy Department of the Prosperous Justice Party, said. "The wage increase in 2012 for laborers that they obtained through struggles will be meaningless. The hike of fuel oil will boost the price of goods, reducing the purchasing power of laborers and degrading the value of their wage," Indra said here on Sunday. He said that what become the main problem in the increase in the fuel oil prices was not the Rp1,500 or Rp2,000 increase but the effect that would emerge after the price hike policy was implemented. The fuel price hikes will have impact on the sky-rocketing of nine basic commodity prices and the prices of other goods and transportation cost. This will burden the people and will be felt by hundreds of millions of small people. "The impact will cause the poor to become poorer and will increase the number of new poor people," he said. The fuel oil price increase will also generate production cost and lead companies to streamline or lay off their workers, he said. "The real problem with regard to fuel oil is caused by the inability or failure of the government in managing fuels," Indra said. (*)