Seaport police in dilemma over containers at Tanjung Priok

JAKARTA (JP): Tanjung Priok Seaport Police (KP3) in North Jakarta admit that they're still unable to properly examine every container coming in and out of the country's busiest seaport.

KP3 chief Lt. Col. Edward Aritonang said that his personnel have the right to make such inspections but significant barriers have prevented them from doing their job.

One of the biggest problems is the heavy volume of merchandise coming out of the port, some 2,500 container trucks per day, Edward told The Jakarta Post recently.

"The flow is heavy. It takes extra time and effort to manage the traffic, let alone to examine each and every container," said Edward, who will be promoted as South Jakarta Police Chief next month.

He added that owners of the goods often refuse to let police check the containers thoroughly, saying that such inspections hurt business. After all, time is money.

"The entrepreneurs even question our reasons for inspecting the goods since the seaport's Customs and Excise officials have already given their okay to the containers," Edward explained.

The port police actually have the authority to examine all containers which are about to leave the port even though they have been okayed and sealed by the Customs and Excise officials, he said.

According to Edward, the businessmen go to the police only when their containers are missing or stolen.

The Customs and Excise office, he said, coordinate with the port police only when they come up with certain suspicious items, such as guns and drugs.

"Most of the time we confiscate the smuggled goods after they have been released by the Customs officials," he said, citing the recent success story of his men in foiling the attempted smuggling of luxury cars, which had been disassembled into pieces, into the country.

Ever since the monetary turmoil hit the nation in mid-1997, businessmen have continuously imported used products, like tires, luxury cars, motorcycles, refrigerators and photocopy machines, mostly from Singapore.

But some smugglers have taken advantage of the situation and have, for instance, disassembled the cars, such as Ferraris, to give the impression they were importing spare parts, or the wrecks of used cars.

On March 9, Edward and his men confiscated 67 luxury cars, all of which had been disassembled. Some of the cars had been split in half, to be welded later by the owners before selling them.

Edward believed that several Customs and Excise officials at the port could have "played a significant role" in the smuggling of the cars since such goods should have been inspected through the red lane.

"But the customs officials released them anyway," he said.

Separately, head of the operation section at Directorate General of Tax and Excise's office for Jakarta chapter Mathias Buluama denied the accusation.

"What smuggling? The cars all had valid documents. We have to let them go when the tax is paid and the containers have legal documents," he told the Post on Thursday.

"The owner of the Ferraris, for instance, stated that he legally imported the three Ferraris from overseas," Mathias said, referring to the expensive cars seized recently by police, who labeled the vehicles as smuggled goods.

The case of the disassembled cars is also the same, he said.

"They (legally) came in parts and by stages, not in one shipment. It would be different if they imported completely- knocked-down cars in a single container.

In the Ferrari case, he said, the owner broke the seals of the customs officials. The seal was bonded on the cars, waiting for the license to be issued by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

"The owner broke the seals and used the cars on the street and that was when police caught him," he said.

"Breaking the seals can cost you two years in prison or a fine of Rp 150 million according to Law No. 10/1995 on Customs and Excise," Mathias explained.

According to him, the public has a different perception of smuggling.

"The law categorizes smuggling as an activity of transferring goods without following proper procedures, or of trying to fake the information of an item's quantity, price, or type," he said.

"But we call these things document manipulations instead of smuggling because they are transferring the goods through proper channels such as Tanjung Priok seaport," he added. (09/nvn)