KUCHING: Sarawak Shipping Association (SSA) views the recent malfunctioning of Kuching Port Container Operation Unit’s recent computer was only the tip of an iceberg that triggered the shipping lines to resort to drastic action – imposing congestion surcharge.
They said that the collection of such surcharge was more for alerting the port to re-examine its performance level, rather than recover ship owners’ daily losses due to the queue of more than one week for berthing under the present situation.
“SSA and shipping lines have been telling Kuching Port over the past several years to procure more reliable handling equipment including quay cranes (QC) to replace the existing old and frequently down machine,” it said in a statement after attending their first annual general meeting (AGM) online today (April 24).
It explained that the container operation unit (COU) consists of two wings. One is the quayside ship loading and discharging operation including container stacking at the container yard (CY), and the other wing is tasked with the containers delivery and redelivery at CY for hauliers.
“The port should have allocated a separate set of men and equipment to handle the two wings independently, but due to frequent malfunctioning of the handling equipment that necessitated merging of operations of the two wings at CY, resulting in the mistreatment of one wing in order to satisfy the other.
“It is high time for the top management at the ministerial level to revamp the whole operations and allocate contingency funds to beef up machinery to diffuse the current crisis,” it said.
The association added that the capital dredging of Kuching Port’s navigational channel was another area that required due attention, of which the project was originally scheduled for completion on June 10 last year.
“We regret that no warning notice or signal to mariners was issued from time to time since the start of the project on Nov 9, 2017, that is, on shallow water and/or diversion of navigation due to dredging activity.
“As a result, three ships were grounded midstream in the vicinity of Tanjung Renard last year,” he said adding that they were told that the project was under the federal Ministry of Transport and overseen by Marine Department Port Klang headquarters.
While commending the Sarawak government’s prompt action to build a river-crossing bridge from Kampung Tanjung Bako, Samarahan, to Demak Laut Commercial Centre near Sejingkat Terminal for easing traffic congestion in Samarahan areas, SSA said that the shipping industry was concerned about the position of the Sim Kheng Hong Wharf.
“We were told the air-draft of the bridge would be 26 metres. Ships with higher air-draft, such as roll on/roll off (RORO) carriers and larger foreign ships would be restricted to berth at the wharf,” it said.
SSA said that the shipping industry should not be kept in the dark about the government’s future plan for Sim Kheng Hong wharf; likewise, the proposed expansion of Senari Terminal as mentioned by KPA general manager in a webinar recently.
“More details should be made available to our industry, which would be directly affected by the said bridge project. Mishandling of the situation would destabilise the whole market,” it said.
