GOVERNMENT DETERMINED TO REFORM THE HARBOR SECTOR

The condition of dome harbors in Indonesia was rated as not being maximized in terms of performance. There were two lanes on the race track: growth and need. Ideally investment was twice as much as need based on standard to keep up with increasing inflow goods.

In evaluating harbors the Directorate General of Sea Transportation had were: Waiting Time, Approach Time, Effective Time, compared to Berth Time. Productivity: receiving and delivery of containers, Berth Occupancy Ratio, Shed Occupancy Ratio, Yard Occupancy Ratio and Readiness of Operational Equipments.

The Government was most concerned about the favorable and competitive condition of harbors. For that matter, the Government planned to restructure permit issuance of Harbor Business Unit [BUP]. The action was on account of many companies not running harbor operations although they had pocketed Regulator’s permit. “It is our determination to reform the harbor to make it better” Bobby said.

However, Bobby was not in a position to confirm the process of restructuring the BUP permit as they were making evaluation of all holders of operational permit of harbors. Data of the Directorate General of Sea Transportation stated that holders of Harbor Operation Permit was posted at 144 companies including PT Pelindo l and Pelindo ll, but in reality only 10 companies were actively running business in accordance with BPUP permit. BPUP according to Law No. 17/2008 on sailing was a company whose business was managing harbor terminals and facilities.

The Ministry of Transportation, Bobby said, was in the process of scheming up a Regulation in the form of Ministrial Decree as substitute to Kepmen No 54/2002 who would reformation of BPUP permit. He was preparing a substitute Regulation to Kepmen no 54/2002. BPUP who were not doing any activity in spite of holding permit, would have their permit cancelled. According to Bobby the low permit of Permit holding BPUP who were not doing activities they were permitted to do was due to lack of capability to run harbor business. “The capital needed to do harbor task is quite sizable” Bobby said.

Meanwhile businesspeople rated the slow process of infra structure and logistics rehabilitation which had been the cause of high cost economy, must be tackled by improving loading and unloading procedures for certain commodities. Natsir mansyur, Vice Chairman of KADIN, Trading, Distribution and Logistics Section explained that loading and unloading of commodities was still in conventional way, causing high logistics cost. In this case modernized packing plant in a harbor was most needed to maximize efficiency.

Natsir said that if modernization of harbor was not exercised, there would be stagnation in loading and unloading which had the potential to affect export performance. He said that so far the propeller of national economic growth was foreign investment and people’s consumption. In the future other sectors like infra structure could be jacked up. At the moment infra structure development was not sufficient as many regions were out of reach. He said that the un integrated condition of infra structure and logistics system had weakened national food resiliency.

Business News - November 29, 2013