Customs and importers clash on container pile-up

JAKARTA (JP): Importers and the customs office are again blaming each other for the container pile up at Jakarta's Tanjung Priok port.

Chairman of the Indonesian Importers Association, Amirudin Saud, blames the container pile up on customs officials' slow processing of customs declarations.

He said the customs office often rejected importers' customs declarations but did not notify importers until two days later.

"Consequently, imports (in containers) continue to pile up at Tanjung priok port and congestion is unavoidable," Amirudin was quoted by the Kompas daily yesterday as saying.

To reduce the pile up, Amirudin suggested the customs office speed up the processing of documents so importers could remove their goods out of the port quickly. It can take up to four days at present to process customs documents.

But the director general of customs and excise, Soehardjo Soebardi, said yesterday the pile up should be blamed on importers' mistakes, not on his office.

"Anytime there is congestion, people immediately blame us and accuse us of processing customs documents too slowly," Soehardjo said.

Both importers and shipowners have been complaining about the slow clearance of imports from Tanjung Priok port since April when the customs service resumed its inspection service.

Between May, 1985 and March, 1997, Indonesia used a pre- shipment inspection system for imports at ports of loading, thereby guaranteeing fast clearance at ports of arrival because the customs service was not authorized to make inspections, except in rare cases of suspected import regulations violations.

Soehardjo said some importers did not fill in their customs declarations correctly, and this slowed processing because the documents had to be returned.

And many importers were found to have violated regulations by undervaluing their imported goods or understating import tariffs, he said.

In many cases customs officials had to direct imported goods to the red lane for physical checks, thereby delaying the clearance of goods.

He also alleged that importers sometimes deliberately delayed moving their goods from the port because storage fees were free at the port for the first six days.

Soehardjo said this often forced the port authority and customs service to move containers to private temporary storage areas at the importers' expense.

Last April, the container yard occupancy ratio at Tanjung Priok reached a critical 97 percent, but this was solved after the port authority removed a large number of containers every day to private storage areas, he said.

Soehardjo said his office would propose to the transportation minister that the free-of-charge stacking time for containers at Tanjung Priok port be reduced from six days to four days to force faster movement of containers out of the port.

Amirudin rejected Soehardjo's allegation that importers deliberately delayed moving their goods out of the port.

"No single importer wants to have its imports stay even just one day longer than necessary at the port, because it increases costs. The root of the problem is the slow processing of customs documents at the port," Amirudin said.

He said importers could not move their goods without clearance documents from the customs office.

The customs office should process documents faster, he said. Customs officials should not force the movement of containers to private temporary storage areas while their documents were being processed, he said.

"The transfer of containers from Tanjung Priok to private container yards means additional costs for importers because of the much higher storage fees they charge," Amirudin said.

Besides exorbitant storage fees, importers also have to bear the cost of moving containers from the port to the storage areas, he said.

Soehardjo again promised yesterday that his office would process customs documents within two hours if importers submitted clean documents.

Soehardjo warned that congestion at Tanjung Priok would impose additional costs on both importers and exporters because foreign shipping firms would impose surcharges on their freight to and from the country.

The Overseas Shipowners' Representatives Association (OSRA) at Tanjung Priok port recently warned that the port would suffer serious congestion unless the customs office took serious steps to remedy the pile-up.

OSRA said the container pile up could affect not only imports but also exports as importers overseas would be discouraged from buying from Indonesia. (rid)