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What's Happening To The Muara Container Terminal?
By Ignatius Stephen

Bandar Seri Begawan - Most of the time you write straight from the heart. At least that is so in my case. Many others, I suspect, find themselves in the same shoes often.

It could be a sense of extreme joy that might move you but sometimes it is sorrow and perturbation that compel you to put words on paper.

The current fiasco enacted on Muara Container Terminal (MCT) is one instance that would want you to cry out at the top of your lungs and exclaim: For goodness sake, what on earth is happening?

Because it is a matter of national interest that we keep our worldwide container port links intact and in good running condition as the case now.

The danger now is clear: We meddle in this at our own peril. That is quite clear.

Improve the system by all means but do not tinker with it and make it worse as the case now clearly seems to be.

So the question stares right at us: Are we heading towards the right direction come April I? Or would we be worse off? Do you think that the fears of the business community would unfortunately materialise?

Indeed, there are disturbing uncertainties. And these are brought about by the strange and unexplained behaviour of those who now control the situation.

The scenario is briefly this: In the year 2000, Brunei signed a Terminal Management Agreement with PSA Corporation Limited of Singapore (PSA) and its local partner, Archipelago Corporation, to manage, develop and operate the newly built Muara Container Terminal (MCT) for 25 years.

Starting from scratch, the much-experienced PSA moved in state-of-the-art IT other modern equipment and established an efficient working environment second to none in Brunei.

Things, at least, from the outside, seemed to be doing well. For example, a local newspaper report said a year ago, commenting on PSA's Muara success, that it "crossed the 100,000-container mark" in 2005 and has managed to keep above this mark ever since. Then lo and behold! Imagine the surprise when PSA was summarily kicked out, breaking the 25year contract some months ago.

The logical question that came to many a mind was why a world-class player like PSA booted out when it was apparently doing so well?

Why the hurry to break our contract with PSA? Are we therefore able to find someone else better to fill the gap?

Especially as such, we are about to lose a valuable system of regional and global networking port linkup by doing this.

Tenders were called to take over the work at MCT earlier this year in view of PSA's impending departure.

A number of local and overseas organisations apparently responded.

Whether these could surpass the current operators criteria remains a question.

Meanwhile, time was running out. Yet, there was no result as to who was the new kid on the block. Importers were getting worried and port employers were becoming increasingly restless.

Indecision and muddle seemed to be the order of the day.

Meanwhile, to add to the confounding situation, the Ports Department called a new tender to run MCT for an "interim" period earlier this month.

The funny thing was that they had an ongoing tender on which there was resolution as they worked on a new "interim" tender.

What is really mysterious is that the tender was released on Saturday, March 10, at 11 am and was closed on Tuesday, March 13.

It is understood only two companies were invited. And out of the two, both had also participated in the first tender under different names.

What happened to the rest of the participants of the first tender, you wonder?

The ministry had assured previously the public and port users that they should not worry about the level of service at the Container Terminal after March 31.

They had furthered assured that service level will be maintained and there will not be any disruption of service. That is hard to believe.

Is that possible now as especially you are told that the "Computer Terminal System" is no longer a pre-requirement or rather mandatory or physically possible given the short handover period involved for the "Interim Contractor"?

That being so, people are asking how could the terminal provide similar or on-par service compared to the current operator, who has by far more experience and has in place a sophisticated Computer Integrated Terminal Operating System to aid its operations? Above all, why the hurry? Where is the planning?

Reliable sources say looking at the current situation, PSA Muara had officially offered the Ports Department not once but twice for the running of the terminal "at cost" until they could effectively award the tender to a successful bidder.

However, there had not been any response nor did anyone initiate any negotiation whatsoever. Surely we have an attitude problem here, if that is true.

What really is taking place raises many, many questions.

These issues must be addressed urgently or else we will be taking a big step backward in our effort to modernise our vital services like our ports, concerned public said.

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