KUCHING, April 14 — Sarawak DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen today disputed an assertion by Kuching Port Authority (KPA) general manager Robert Lau that the Senari Port has returned to normal as of yesterday.

He said there are still containers that could not be located as the computer system is still out when he visited the port today.

“As I understand from the ground, the computer system that broke down two weeks ago is still not restored and not in operation. 

“At present, an alternative system is used and certain procedures are still done manually,” he said in a statement in response to Lau’s statement made yesterday.

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Chong observed that KPA staff at Senari Port were doing their best to clear the backlog of containers stuck at the port due to the outage, adding that it was the management that needed to review its privatisation policy contracting most of its port services to a third party.

“This computer system outage is just part of a large problem,” he said.

He claimed that not much has improved in services since the privatisation implemented a few years ago.

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In a statement yesterday, Lau said the Senari Terminal’s port operation had returned to normal following the restoration of its computer system after an outage at the end of last month.

The terminal suffered a computer outage on March 29 which resulted in delays in container delivery.

Infrastructure and Ports Development Minister Tan Sri James Masing said on April 10 that the port’s computer system was damaged by water entering its electronic conduit and that all effort was being made to fix the problem.