KUCHING: The Kuching Chinese General Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCGCCI) urges all shipping companies to cease levying the Congestion Surcharge with immediate effect.
Shipping companies had imposed the surcharge on importers following the port congestion and computer outage at Senari Terminal on March 27.
KCGCCI organised an online meeting with relevant stakeholders including the Ministry of Infrastructure and Port Development (MIPD), Kuching Port Authority (KPA), Malaysian Shipowners Association (Masa), Sarawak Shipping Association (SSA) and Sarawak Forwarding Agents Association (SFAA) to tackle the issue.
The meeting was a follow-up to a roundtable meeting initiated by Deputy Chief Minister and Infrastructure and Port Development Minister, Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr James Jemut Masing, to deliberate on the same issue on April 20.
Chamber president Datuk Tan Jit Kee said the business community has been unreasonably victimised by the Congestion Surcharge imposed arbitrarily by the shipping companies due to the port congestion.
“The shipping companies should negotiate with KPA if they have suffered losses due to the port congestion instead of arbitrarily and unfairly passing the costs to the importers and the consumers at large,” he said.
He noted that stakeholders agreed the operation at Senari Terminal had improved in May, after the port’s computer system has been repaired.
“However, it has not returned to the levels of efficiency recorded previously in January, February and March before the outage occurred.
“As such, port users hoped that further improvement could be achieved to resolve the congestion problem so that the operation could return to normal as soon as possible,” he added.
Meanwhile, Masa said it would not intervene with the decision on the levy of the Congestion Surcharge.
“This is due to legal constraint and it is up to the individual shipping companies as to the timing of doing away with such surcharge,” it said.
KCGCCI is hopeful that with the state government’s support, KPA could soon upgrade its facilities including the acquisition of additional quay and gantry cranes to improve the operation at the port.
The computer outage at the Senari Port Terminal belonging to KPA was caused by water penetrating into an electrical conduit resulting in electrical short circuiting, causing serious delays in containerised cargoes exiting the port.
