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State-owned Enterprises Minister Mustafa Abubakar on Thursday said he had given the regional management of PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) until the first week of December to end the blackouts that have plagued Jakarta and surrounding areas in recent weeks, or face “serious sanctions.”

However, the buck, it seems, might not reach the all the way to the top. Mustafa avoided the question of whether he would sack any of the company’s board of directors.

During a visit to PLN’s central facility in Cawang, where the city’s problems originated after a key generator was damaged by a fire in September, Mustafa said PLN’s general manager for Jakarta and Tangerang and its director for the Java-Bali region had guaranteed him that the area’s customers would not suffer from any more rolling blackouts beginning on Dec. 1.

They promised to fix the Cawang facility and secure additional power supplies for the city by early December, Mustafa said.

“You have heard of the deadline [for PLN to fix the problems]. Should there be a good performance, I will give bonuses, special promotions. But if the deadline passes and the problems cannot be fixed, there will be sanctions on each of the officials,” said Mustafa, the former president director of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).

“It could be a delay in promotions or a downgrade of positions. They may not still be sitting in their positions. By the end of this year, we will evaluate all of their performances,” he said.

However, Mustafa declined to say whether he might dismiss some of PLN’s directors.

“It has not been thought out that far yet,” he said.

When asked about Mustafa’s statement, PLN president director Fahmi Mochtar noted that a carrot-and-stick system was common in most companies.

However, Bambang Trisulo, chairman of the Indonesian Automotive Industry Association (Gaikindo), said Mustafa had taken the wrong approach by offering incentives for fixing the city’s power problems, especially given their high cost for companies in the region.

“This is not something new. Blackouts have been happening in this city quite often. Why are such remarks only made when the situation is critical? Even for the scheduled blackouts it has cost us. Now there are unscheduled blackouts,” he said.

“It is definitely burdening us with soaring costs that they cannot pay back even if they promise to give us a 10 percent power bill discount,” Bambang told the Jakarta Globe.

On Wednesday PLN said it would give a “discount” to consumers and businesses affected by the blackouts.

Fahmi claimed the discount was “10 percent of the bill.”

However, Tulus Abadi, chairman of the Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation, said the discount was actually 10 percent off a fixed monthly service charge.

The maximum savings for individual households would be just Rp 20,000 ($2.12),” he said.