Fees and graft at Priok

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