Fees and graft at Priok

I read with interest your two articles published on May 9 and May 10 about illegal fees and graft at Tanjung Priok Port (Illegal fees double RI export costs; Congestion, chaos, graft in port). I think your correspondents are far too conservative as regards the charges being levied at Tanjung Priok Port in the form of illegal fees and bribes.

My ordeal began three months ago, when I arrived in your beautiful country as a foreigner to work together with the Ministry of Health for three years to improve the health conditions of the very poor, in a project jointly funded by the government of Indonesia and the European Union.

Having never before traveled to Indonesia, the very first welcoming salutation I received after an exhausting 18-hour flight, was the sight of three Food & Animal Control officers threatening me to place my small pet dog in quarantine -- regardless to the fact that I carried all the necessary international legal and vaccination certificates, and had consulted with the Indonesian Embassy prior to my departure -- unless I paid them Rp 1,000,000. After a lengthy and tiring discussion, they accepted Rp 500,000 to let me enter the country with my dog.

As I had done on my previous assignments, I sent my personal belongings by ship from my home country to Jakarta before I traveled here to assume my job as a public health doctor. As is normal, the shipping company in my country charged me 175 euro for the freight of a 150 kg 6-foot long, 3-foot wide wooden chest (around Rp 1,900,000). Once in Jakarta's Tanjung Priok Port, I was also heavily charged (Rp 2,100,000) for the privilege of having the chest placed in Customs storage. I accepted this with stoicism.

Once the Customs clearance procedures were finished -- I was entitled to import tax-free personal domestic items, which ranged from a few pairs of shoes and a couple of shirts to bed sheets -- and when I thought that my troubles were over, I found out that I was not going to get the chest out of the Port -- unless I was prepared to pay around Rp 2,000,000 in under-the-counter charges, i.e., bribes, to the Customs officers.

For more than three weeks I tried to get the chest out but to no avail. Eventually, and after having been forced to pay Rp 1,300,000 in "non-specific charges", I was finally able to retrieve my belongings.

Given that your articles state that the importer of a 20-ft container has to pay Rp 989,000 in legal charges, plus some Rp 1,040,000 in illegal ones, I calculate that, just for being an ordinary person without the necessary connections, I have had to pay more for my tiny 6-foot little box than I would have to pay for a 20-foot container.

JUAN LUIS DOMMNGUEZ Palembang, South Sumatra