T

he newly established Maritime Security Board (Bakamla) acknowledged Monday that it was still working to coordinate with other maritime stakeholders to achieve effective law enforcement in Indonesian waters.

'€œSynergizing with other maritime stakeholders takes time, they also have their own regulations,'€ Bakamla'€™s operating chief Commodore Wuspo Lukito said in his office in Jakarta.

For instance, there is no coordination among the institutions for water patrols.

Currently Bakamla is tasked with coordinating 12 institutions in the country'€™s maritime sector, including the Navy, the water police, the Customs Office, the Immigration agency, prosecutors'€™ offices, the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Transportation Ministry.

Lukito said that coordination had been a serious obstacle for Bakamla, as well as for the implementation of Bakamla'€™s tasks, however he was optimistic that the shortcomings could be addressed soon after President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo issued the presidential decision to extend regulation of the law on Maritime Affairs.

'€œBakamla is still new and we are trying to meet the targets set by the government,'€ Lukito said.

Bakamla, established on Dec. 13 last year, constitutes an evolution of the Maritime Security Coordinating Board (Bakorkamla) with more powerful roles and functions, as well as a larger staff and fleet.

Mandated by the 2014 Law on maritime affairs, Bakamla was established as a bridge for the large number of institutions involved in the country'€™s maritime sector.

Besides overlapping regulations and a lack of coordination among maritime stakeholders, Bakamla also has a resource shortage, including human resources and patrol boats.

Bakamla, which has only three patrol vessels, is expected to employ 2,000 personnel, five times more than Bakorkamla.

'€œWe have prepared 30 patrol vessels to meet the needs of Bakamla,'€ Bakamla operational management head Col. Andi Achdar said, adding that the vessels would be produced by local ship builders, as were Bakamla'€™s current vessels KN Bintang Laut and KN Singa Laut.

Bakamla has also allocated funds to buy a drone that would be suitable for the new ships.

Andi said that the Navy also planned to donate 10 of its ships, however Bakamla did not know whether the donation included human resources too.

'€œWe totally don'€™t have enough resources,'€ Andi said.

In the future, Bakamla will face more challenges, especially in illegal fishing, and drug and fuel smuggling. The institution plans to arrange nine operations titled '€œOperation Nusantara'€ to secure Indonesia in 2015.

The operations will be held based on intelligence data, as well as from the Bakamla Early Warning System.

'€œWe get the data then take the necessary action. This is more efficient and will save fuel,'€ Andi said.