Importers complain of uncertainty at port
Importers complain of uncertainty at port
JAKARTA (JP): Importers yesterday complained about increased
costs and uncertainty at Jakarta's Tanjung Priok port following a
critical container pile-up there since late April.
They complained, at a meeting with Minister of Transportations
Haryanto Dhanutirto, that their containers were often moved
arbitrarily by customs and port officials to private storage
depots, resulting in high additional costs.
"Well, it's not only a problem of increasing costs, but of
responsibility. Where's Pelindo's responsibility?" said importer
A. Syarif, referring to PT Pelindo II which manages the port.
Since late April, when the yard occupancy rate at Tanjung
Priok port reached a critical 97 percent, the authorities have
been removing many containers a day to private depots to reduce
the pile-up.
"The problem, though, is that importers are required to pay
more than Rp 500,000 (US$205) per 20-foot equivalent (TEU) per
day," Syarif said.
On top of that, importers also have to bear the trucking costs
from Tanjung Priok to the private terminals.
Syarif said that if goods for some reason had to be
transferred elsewhere within six days after unloading, the cost
of the transfer and the private depot's storage fee should be
Pelindo's responsibility.
Another importer, Budiman, said the arbitrary transfer of
containers from the port's customs area to private terminals
often made it extremely difficult for importers to find their
consignments.
Often importers could not clear their goods from the port,
although they had secured clearance orders from the customs
office, because the port's officials could not find their
containers, he said.
"Once, we found the wanted containers in Tanjung Priok's
container yard. But we could not take them out simply because the
port authority had issued an order to transfer them to a private
terminal," Budiman said.
Haryanto said in response, that the government should expedite
the movement of containers from Tanjung Priok to private
terminals to avoid congestion.
"But we also urge the customs service to reduce the amount of
imports going through the red lane (subject to physical
inspection) to a maximum 10 percent," he said.
But Haryanto also blamed importers for the container pile-up.
He said importers often deliberately delayed picking up their
containers from Tanjung Priok's container yards because they did
not have to pay storage fees for the first six days after
unloading.
Citing data from Pelindo II, Haryanto said that in May, 60,000
TEUs were unloaded. Fifty-eight thousand TEUs were cleared by
the customs office but only 32,000 were picked up by their
importers.
Most goods were picked up by their owners on the sixth day
after unloading, the minister said.
He said the government was considering cutting the length of
time importers could store their consignments free of charge at
the port from six days to four days.
But importers said yesterday they would not be able to
complete processing all the documents for the clearance of their
imports within four days.
"We might be able pick up goods within four days as stated by
Minister Haryanto if all parties were connected by the electronic
data interchange," Mudrik, an importer, said. (rid)