Priok port management assailed

JAKARTA (JP): Chairman of the Importers Association of Indonesian Amiruddin Saud criticized the poor management of Jakarta's Tanjung Priok port, saying that "conflicting interests" caused facility maintenance and services to be neglected.

Amiruddin was quoted Saturday by Antara as saying that due to conflicting interests, all the parties who are supposed to manage and maintain the port facilities have neglected their responsibility and, as a result, only two of the six existing cranes operate properly, seriously slowing down the port's handling activities.

At present, he said, the Tanjung Priok port can handle only 15 containers an hour, far below the efficiency of other international ports such as Singapore which can handle up to 30 containers per hour.

He pointed out that the delay in handling processes has in turn caused a longer waiting period for ships, many of which have had to delay their handling processes by up to five days.

Amiruddin said that similar port conditions actually also occur in Surabaya's Tanjung Perak port, but because almost 70 percent of Indonesia's imports are handled at Tanjung Priok, the problem here has a more serious effect than in Surabaya.

He had said earlier that foreign shipping companies were threatening to impose service surcharges of up to US$70 million a year on importers to compensate for the increase of their ships' operational costs by up to $15,000 a day.

A shipping executive said that the Intra Asia Discussion Agreement forum, which consists of 44 shipping lines from the Asia-Pacific region, may decide to impose such a surcharge during their monthly meeting, which is scheduled to be held today.

PT Pelabuhan Indonesia II recently announced that it will conduct a major crash program in an effort to meet the required international standard of services. (pwn)