SHIPPING companies have agreed to shelve their plan to impose a port emergency congestion surcharge on shippers at the Senari port in Kuching.

This has come about after a roundtable discussion with the state’s Minister for Infrastructure and Port Development James Masing and stakeholders yesterday.

The congestion was due to the March 27 crash of the port’s computerised handling system, which made the clearing process of containers by the Kuching Port Authority (KPA) from around 40 minutes to at least two hours per container.

Masing said the government had appealed to the shipping companies not to impose the surcharge on the shippers because “it will have negative spiral spin-off economic effects to the public”.

Masing, who is also a deputy chief minister, said prices of goods will increase and the public, in general, will bear the consequences.

Last Saturday, Masing gave his assurance that he will convene a roundtable meeting and invite all the stakeholders to discuss and find ways to resolve the issue.

The shipping companies, claiming their operational cost had escalated due to the congestion, were planning to impose a surcharge of RM310 for a 20-foot container and RM620 for the 40-foot container.

Masing said the congestion had not only resulted in costs due to the extended wait by ships to discharge at the port, the extra waiting time had incurred additional cost to the hauliers as well.

Apologising to all port users for the congestion, Masing also gave the assurance that operations at the port will return to normal by the end of the month “barring natural disasters and health pandemic”.

He said to ensure such a congestion will not happen again, KPA will acquire one new harbour crane using its own internal funding and shipping companies are to provide their own ship- to- shore cranes on one berth.

“As a long-term measure, the government will acquire two extra quay cranes to enable three berth operations and four new gantry cranes to place the current ageing cranes.

“KPA has been instructed to review its computer system, with back-up software, so that if there is another computer outage, there will not be any more traffic congestion both on land and on sea,” Masing said.

The roundtable meeting via Zoom was attended by five shipping companies, key officials of KPA, and officials from the Kuching Chinese General Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCGCCI). – April 27, 2021.