Transportation Ministry to "sterilize" four main sea ports

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Transportation Ministry will take the necessary steps to "sterilize" four main sea ports in the country in an effort to further improve security and safety in sea transprtation, a senior ministry official said.

"We will soon take coordinative steps to sterilize sea ports. In the first phase, our efforts will cover four main sea ports, namely Tanjung Priok (Jakarta), Tanjung Perak (Surabaya) , Belawan (Medan) and Makassar (South Sulawesi)," H Harijogi, director general of sea transportation, said here Monday.

He said actually all sea ports in the country should already be in sterile condition under existing regulations because the condition was a contributing factor to the security and safety of sea transportation.

"The more so, because some of our sea ports are officially considered as having complied with the ISPS Code which is applied internationally. So there is no more excuse for those sea ports not to be sterile," he said.

The responsibility for sterilizing sea ports lay with the managements and administrators of the sea ports concerned. "The equipment they need to sterilize their sea ports includes metal detectors and X-ray machines," he said.

Starting April 1, 2007, the procedure to apply for a sailing permit at sterile sea ports would include the completion of a form in which there would be a special column where shipowners or skippers must declare any dangerous goods or substances their vessels are to transport.

"Harbor masters will examine this column on dangerous goods or substances and decide whether the sailing permit can be issued," he said,

In countries like Singapore, Malaysia and in Europe, the same procedure was done through an electronic port declaration but in Indonesia it would still have to be done manually, he added.