SI denies involvement in smuggling attemp

SI denies involvement in smuggling attemp

JAKARTA (JP): I Nyoman Moena, the president of PT Surveyor
Indonesia (SI), ruled out the involvement of the surveying
company's officials in the recent failed attempt to smuggle a
container of automotive wheel rims from Taiwan into the country.

Moena said yesterday that the Taiwanese exporter replaced the
contents of the container already checked by SI officials with
automotive wheel rims by altering the box's seals.

"The exporter has admitted the offense and had been fined," he
told reporters following the inauguration of the new headquarters
of the Association of Indonesian Importers (Ginsi).

He said the container was originally filled with PVC pipes but
its exporter replaced them with wheel rims immediately after the
inspection had been carried out.

Moena declined to identify both the exporter and importer. He
also did not want to speculate on the possible collusion between
the two.

Commenting on SI's plan to take over the whole jobs of pre-
shipment inspection on Indonesia's imports from the Swiss Society
Generale de Surveillance (SGS) in December this year, Moena said
that every thing was running as scheduled.

"There are only four remaining countries -- Japan, the United
States, South Korea and China -- where inspection of Indonesia's
imports are still carried out by SGS," he said, adding that the
opening of branch offices in those four countries is being
prepared.

He said that SI has so far handled the inspection of imports
at ports of loading in 13 countries including Britain, France,
Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia,
Australia, Hongkong, Taiwan, Canada and Thailand.

"I am optimistic that we will be able to handle all the pre-
shipment inspection jobs before the end of this year," he said.

SI is 76 percent owned by the government, 20 percent by SGS
and four percent by PT Sucofindo, a state-owned firm, which is
responsible for the pre-shipment inspection of exports.

The government assigned SGS to conduct custom inspections in
1985.(hen)