Priok port management assailed

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)