Please Mr President, can you be angrier?

The haze problem blanketing South-east Asia has become some sort of an annual ritual. Haze from Indonesia arrives unwelcomed; chokes its neighbours; pollutants indices record the unhealthy levels; people get sick and schools get shut; some areas get it worse; government officials start to talk and tell Indonesia it’s a problem; Indonesia says it has problems but is “serious” about solving it. And by the time we expect something to be done; the haze gets cleared and more importantly, Indonesia gets cleared and regional officials can heave a sign of relief that they don’t have to pressure the regional giant more.



But maybe this year we may be able to get a real solution. A Straits Times report quoted a Jakarta think-tank official as saying that the problem is not that Indonesia doesn’t have the political will (surprise, surprise).



“He is serious,” Wiryono Sustrohandoyo, senior fellow at Jakarta’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said, referring to the Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.



He said the president has given ministers strict instructions to act on the problem.



“I am hopeful now because the president has been very angry,” he was quoted saying.



So let’s all hope that the President gets really, really angry so that his ministers will be frightened enough to act quickly.



It was reported that complaints from regional neighbours have strengthened the president’s resolve to put an end to the haze problem. I hope they realise that this is not the first time regional complaints have complained.



Our industry should take this issue seriously. Airports are shutting down in Indonesia and in no time, word will get out that the region is not safe to travel to because of the haze, even though it may affect some areas. We already have enough health and security concerns to slow down travel. We don't need another.