City police need more patrol boats

JAKARTA (JP): National Police Chief Gen. Dibyo Widodo has called for more patrol boats and speedboats to help the water police patrol the archipelago.

He said Thursday that ideally each of the 27 police headquarters should have five patrol boats and 50 speedboats.

At present the force has a total of only 21 patrol boats, not the 135 needed, said Dibyo. Speedboat numbers are 313, not the 1350 needed.

"It's really not enough," he said, while briefing reporters about next week's Water and Air Police 47th Anniversary to be held at the Water Police Headquarters in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta.

Dibyo said boats played an important role in supporting daily operations, especially in detecting attempts to smuggle in goods.

"Our plans to get more boats are always dashed by budget problems," he said.

Dibyo said that despite the low budget for the Water Police, it was planned to acquire ten more patrol boats in the near future.

He said that in 1994 the state-owned shipping company PT PAL, based in Surabaya, East Java, was reportedly planning to build five ships for the Water Police.

"But we haven't received any," he said.

Dibyo said the lack of boats had not stopped officers from carrying out their duties.

Successful Water Police operations were conducted this year in the North Java Sea, off the coasts of South and Central Kalimantan, and in the Sulawesi archipelago, he said.

"We have caught at least 158 ships carrying illegally chopped wood and 19 ships carrying stolen fish," Dibyo said. Most of them were Indonesian vessels.

The Water Police confiscated more than 24,950 cubic meters of processed wood, 4,470 kilograms of logs and 2,600 kilograms of fish, he said. (cst)