TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - It is understandable for President Joko Widodo to be furious because of the slow time of unloading containers from the ship to the exit port, known as the dwelling time.
Not only does the slow unloading time result in swelling of the costs borne by the owner of the goods, in the end it also gives Indonesia a bad name in the eyes of the international economic players.
This time, what infuriated President Jokowi is the process of loading and unloading at the port of Belawan in Medan.
While inaugurating the New Container Terminal in Tanjung Priok seaport in North Jakarta on Wednesday, Jokowi highlighted the unloading time at the port of Belawan, which is up more than 5 days of proper 2 days.
Jokowi’s fury increased because the long dwelling time in Belawan port is intentional.
Also, there was only of the eight cranes that is operated. As for the other cranes, they are used for bargain by the port authority to the users if they want the loading-unloading service is prioritized.
Corruption is clearly detrimental to this country.
This is not the first time Jokowi is disturbed over matter of time loading and unloading at the ports.
In June last year, Jokowi was angry because of the long dwelling time in Tanjung Priok. In this port, the dwelling time is 5.5 days, far longer than that is Singapore, which is only one day or in Malaysia and Thailand that are just 3 days.
The case of dwelling time in Priok then led to police investigation. A number of people were questioned for allegedly engaging in corruption behind the long dwelling time.
One of the suspects who was later named as suspect was Director General of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Trade, Partogi Pengaribuan.
Now the time of loading and unloading of containers at Priok seaport is 3.2 days.
Unfortunately, Tanjung Priok dwelling time incident did not make officials in other ports make improvement.
In addition to the Belawan seaport, in other important ports such as Tanjung Perak, Surabaya, the dwelling time is 6 days. In Makassar, which is the gateway of eastern Indonesia, the dwelling time is even up to 7 days.
The slow improvement shows that the port authority lack seriousness in improving the services.
One year period since the event in Priok should have been used to take improvemen measures.
In fact, a new team from PT Pelindo I went to Belawan after President expressed his anger at the port.
We support the swift steps taken to by Police Chief to establish the Task Force of Anti-Illegal Payments to eradicate corruption in Belawan.
We hope that this team will not only clean the ports of Belawan, but all ports that are suspected to do foul play in the dwelling time.
There is no other way to improve the image of our ports except to fix the service system.
For that, port management should act decisively; eradicate corruption, and prioritize professional services for users of the ports.
The management port should not wait Jokowi’s anger for improvement.
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