Shipwreck victims' wives seek House intervention
Shipwreck victims' wives seek House intervention
JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives will urge a Singapore shipping company agent here to pay insurance money to the heirs of crews who were killed in a ship wreck.
A two-member delegation representing 18 widows of ship wreck victims, registered their complaints with the Armed Forces faction at the House yesterday saying that the shipping company agent here had not paid them the money when their husbands died in 1992.
The women also told the faction that they were very disappointed to find last week that the agency of the Singapore company, PT Setyagraha Sarana Maritim, was no longer at its old address.
Legislator H. E. Sumisto said that after he and his colleagues received the women that his faction will ask the police to find out the company's whereabouts and to urge it to solve the problem.
However, contacted by The Jakarta Post yesterday, an official of the agency said the office is still there and the problem was being settled by the company's head office in Singapore.
Murniati, one of the delegates, said they had waited for almost two years for the insurance money since the freighter, MV. Jayapura, sank in the Andaman Sea in June 1992 on its way from Belawan, North Sumatra, to Myanmar.
The ship, owned by Foong Sun Shipping company in Singapore, was carrying iron bars when the tragedy occurred. Twenty crew members died in the disaster. Only the chief engineer and a waiter survived.
Murniati told the legislators that no trace of the freighter and its' crew has been found since then.
She said that based on the agreement, the agency will pay them around $15,000 in money each, depending on their respective husband's position.
"The agent has repeatedly told us that we will receive the money soon after they receive the transfer from the central office in Singapore but we have not seen a cent yet," she said.
Meanwhile the head of the operational section of the agency told the Post that the head office was still handling the case with the P&I Insurance Company in Singapore.
"I hope the problem will be settled within this year," he said.
He added that Foong Sun Shipping Company ended its relationship with his company last month. (03)