This Is The Progress Of President Jokowi's Sea Toll Program Implemented By PELNI

JAKARTA – As a maritime country, sea transportation in Indonesia is very important. President Jokowi also launched the sea toll program to become a means of transportation in distributing passengers, goods, and services. What is the progress so far? Director of PT PELNI, Insan Purwarisya L. Tobing, explained.

“PT PELNI is present as a development agent to strengthen connectivity between regions, including ensuring accessibility for people in the 3TP area as well as emergency response. As a maritime shipping and logistics company in Indonesia, PELNI has three missions, namely passenger ship shipping missions, pioneer ship shipping missions, and marine highway shipping missions", explained Insan Purwarisya L. Tobing in a written statement to VOI some time ago.

As an extension of the Government, he continued, PELNI always strives to carry out its duties by the mandate contained in the PELNI assignment contract and the Indonesian Ministry of Transportation.

Goods and Passengers

Between goods transportation and passenger transportation, according to Insan, each has its own characteristics. “Freight transportation and passenger transportation have different potentials and characteristics, so they cannot be compared. Until now, PELNI operates 26 passenger ships and stops at 76 ports and serves 1,058 segments", he said.

In addition to passenger transportation, continued Insan, PELNI also serves 45 pioneer ship routes which are a means of accessibility for population mobility in the 3TP area, where pioneer ships stop at 285 ports with 3,811 segments. “PELNI also operates 16 Rede vessels. Meanwhile, in logistics business services, PELNI now operates 9 sea toll routes and 1 special route for livestock transportation", he explained.

Until now, the realization of the sea highway program launched by President Jokowi has experienced a significant increase. "During Semester 1 2021 yesterday, the performance of PT Pelayaran Nasional's freight transportation

Indonesia or PT PELNI (Persero) was able to print a production increase of up to 85 percent. The T-10 route that sails the Surabaya route to the islands around Ternate can be used optimally. Departing cargo is usually filled with necessities and industrial products such as cooking oil, sugar, instant noodles, mineral water to snacks. Meanwhile, the current reverse charge has also increased, the Regional Government has shown its superior commodities in each region, namely the route with the most return loads on T-10 (Tg. Perak – Tidore – Morotai – Galela – Maba/Buli – Veda – Tg. Silver) which contributed to the chargeback of 551 TEUs. Backloading is dominated by regional superior products including processed wood, copra, and marine products (fish, shrimp, squid)", he explained.

There is an application that is used for this Sea Toll service, the name is SITOLAUT. This application was launched by the Ministry of Transportation as the regulator, considering that this sea toll ship is an assignment from the Government through the Ministry of Transportation to PELNI. This application makes it easy for shippers to book space to transport goods according to Presidential Regulation No. 59 of 2020 and Ministerial Regulation 53 of 2020 by sea toll vessels to meet the needs of the people in the 3TP area.

What are the obstacles to implementing this marine highway program? "In running this sea toll road, PELNI certainly invites each party to actively participate in the field of sea toll services according to the capacity of each party. This is important considering that the sea toll road plays a very important role in economic equity in the 3TP area so that adequate port facilities are needed to maximize the operation of the sea toll road and due to the different specifications of marine toll vessels that are different from passenger ships", explained Insan Purwarisya L. Tobing regarding the sea toll road announced by President Jokowi.