Indonesia ferry disaster illustrates transport woes

By Sara Webb and Olivia Rondonuwu

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Take a ferry in the vast Indonesian archipelago and there's a good chance your name won't show up on the manifest. Foot passengers often buy tickets on board, while car passengers are sometimes not recorded by name.

Indonesia's latest ferry disaster -- more than 200 people are missing after the Teratai Prima capsized and sank in a storm Sunday -- suggests the government still has a long way to go to improve safety standards in its creaking transportation system.

Officials have blamed bad weather for the ferry tragedy, raising questions over why the boat was allowed to sail from Sulawesi island for the city of Samarinda in East Kalimantan. There are also discrepancies over the passenger list, suggesting more people were on board than the official tally of 267.

But the issue goes well beyond basic safety standards for the millions of Indonesians who travel across the 17,000 or so islands sprinkled over a distance of 5,000 km (3,100 miles).

Poor infrastructure -- whether rustbucket ferries or badly maintained railways and roads -- is a burden.

It adds to the cost of doing business, hampers tourism and ultimately hurts growth in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

"It's all about governance, this has been going on for years," said Erman Avantgarda Rahman, director of economic programs at the Asia Foundation in Jakarta.

"It shows the poor quality of infrastructure, they don't control the number of passengers ... the quality of the boats."

Lack of funding, poor law enforcement, crime and corruption are among the contributing factors to Indonesia's many transport accidents, according to officials.

Increasing incomes mean more Indonesians can afford to buy cars, motorbikes or travel by air, yet investment in the underlying infrastructure has not kept pace.

Rail accidents are sometimes caused by theft of track. Ask any Indonesian if they sat a proper driving test or paid a bribe for their license and the answer is often the latter. Transport Ministry statistics show there were more than 48,500 road accidents in 2007, resulting in at least 16,500 deaths.

SHAKE-UP NEEDED

Transport Minister Jusman Syafi'i Djamal, appointed in May 2007 after a spate of ferry and aviation accidents, promised a shake-up of the sector with a "roadmap to zero accidents."

The number of major ferry and aviation accidents has fallen in the past year.

But Djamal himself admitted this week that when it comes to the maritime sector, only 40-50 percent of the work has been done and problems with small and medium-sized shipping lines persist.