Bakauheni-Merak route to get new ferry service

JAKARTA (JP): Director General for Land Transportation Santo Budiono has indicated that he would directly appoint a company to operate a ferry between Merak, West Java, and Bakauheuni on the southern tip of Sumatra.

"Direct procurement (without tender) is necessary to speed up delivery so that the ferry can start operating during Lebaran (Idul Fitri) this year," Santo said yesterday.

"President Soeharto has agreed to allocate funds to purchase the ship," Santo told reporters in Bandung.

Santo said that no private company had offered to sell the government ferries but reiterated the urgency for more ferries to connect southern Sumatra and West Java.

Bus and truck companies have of late complained about long queues at Merak port because of too few ferry services to Bakauheuni.

Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto had announced earlier a plan to assign the Utari ferry, which had been shipping cars from Jakarta to Surabaya, to the Bakauheuni-Merak ferry route.

Haryanto said the Utari had been losing money because businesspeople preferred to transport cars between the two cities by land.

He said that a ferry, like the Utari, was badly needed for the Bakauheuni-Merak route.

In a related development, Director of PT Marina Bandar Lampung Yongky told Antara yesterday of a promising business opportunity for a ferry service between Merak and Bandar Lampung, another passenger terminal in southern Sumatra.

PT Marina has been servicing Bandar Lampung and Merak with a super-jet ferry which can carry 160 passengers and cruise at 30 knots an hour.

He said his company planned to operate two super-jet ferries on the Bandar Lampung-Merak route to reduce the traffic burdening the Bakauheuni-Merak route.

"I welcome others to invest in our service," Yongky said. (09)