SARAWAK is to review its current policy and development strategies for its five ports, Deputy premier Douglas Uggah said today.

Uggah, who is also the Minister of Infrastructure and Port Development, said the review was ordered by Premier Abang Johari Openg to get the ports in shape to meet the 6%-8% growth target for the state’s post-Covid 19 development strategy.

Uggah said the ports are deemed “very crucial” in the development of the state.

“They are arteries of the state’s growth,” he said in Kuching today.

He said the ultimate aim is to make the ports more efficient, with “the ability to offer world class services to our clients, most of whom are foreign investors”.

To meet the target, Uggah said, for one, the managers of the ports need to adopt the new technologies to enhance their services and operations.

In March last year, a computer glitch at Senari Port, 16km from Kuching, caused chaos and resulted in a massive backlog in clearing the containers.

Locating the containers had to be done manually.

To add to their woes, water that seeped into the electronic conduit short circuited the computer system the following month.

DAP state chairman and Stampin MP Chong Chieng Jen said the computer glitch was “just part of a large problem”.

He said Kuching Port Authority, which manages the facility, needed to review its privatisation policy because it contracted most of its port services to a third party.

In the meantime, Uggah also said the Public Works Department would review its work process to pinpoint where it went wrong as “sick projects keep recurring”.

He said, even though the department had already a “sophisticated operating procedure”, the problem still existed.

Uggah said there are currently 84 sick projects in the state.

“The question is: why is this still happening?” – June 30, 2022.