Police eyeing more suspects in dwelling time case

Jakarta, July 30 (Antara) - The investigators of Jakarta Metro Police are on the lookout for more suspects in a corruption case regarding the dwelling time at Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta. "After interrogating the suspects, I am quite sure about it (that more suspects are involved)," Director of Investigation and Special Crime Directorate of Jakarta Metro Police Office Adjunct Senior Commissioner Mujiono stated here on Thursday. The police are still developing the alleged bribery case to arrest more suspects. However, at least two pieces of evidence are required to name a person as a suspect, Mujiono noted. Mujiono remarked that the loading and unloading activities at Tanjung Priok Port are handled by 18 government institutions, which issue import permits or SPI. Thus, a special task force of the Jakarta Metro Police Office will conduct an investigation on the 18 institutions. Currently, police investigators are questioning Director General of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Trade Partogi Pangaribuan regarding the dwelling time case. On Tuesday (July 28), the police managed to seize a sum of money worth US$40 thousand on the table of Partogi's staff, with the initial R. So far, the police have named three suspects in the case: a non-permanent employee of the Ministry of Trade identified as N, an employee of an importing company identified as MU, and an employee of the Directorate General of Foreign Trade identified as I. Reducing the dwelling time at ports, or the average time a container remains stacked at the terminal, has become one of the priorities in President Joko Widodo's policy. Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs is committed to reducing the dwelling time at Indonesian ports from currently 10-11 days to four or five days. Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Indroyono Soesilo remarked that the logistic cost in Indonesia reaches 24.5 percent of the total GDP, or roughly US$250 billion. Meanwhile, the government has set a target to reduce the logistic cost by up to 19 percent of the total GDP. "One of the ways to achieve this is by reducing the dwelling time," Minister Indroyono emphasized. The dwelling time is projected to reduce on an average to 4.7 days; 2.7 days at pre-customs, 0.5 day at customs, and 1.5 days at post-customs. "It will take 5.7 days at the maximum," the minister affirmed. If the set target of 19 percent of the GDP is achieved, the state will save around US$50 billion in logistic cost. "The efficiency of loading and unloading can be improved. It should be optimized," the minister said. In 2014, the World Bank's Logistics Performance Index (LPI) ranked Indonesia 53rd out of 160 countries, behind neighboring nations such as Vietnam (48), Thailand (35), and Malaysia (25). Singapore has the best LPI among other ASEAN countries and is ranked among the world's top five after Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Great Britain.