The Transportation Ministry is examining dozens of sea port construction projects, suspected to have caused state losses.

The ministry has identified some 26 problematic ports. The construction of these ports have either been halted by the ministry before completion or have been completed but are inoperable.

The ports, built between 2009 to 2015, are located across the archipelago, from Kalimantan and Maluku to West Nusa Tenggara, among other regions. The ports were meant to serve as feeder ports.

Transportation Ministry inspector general Wahju Satrio Utomo said several issues had been identified during discussions with regional governments and auditors.

“What I found first was a lack of planning [for the ports]. In some cases, there had not even been a feasibility study,” he said after attending a meeting to discuss the Sea Transportation Directorate General’s performance on Tuesday.

Wahju said that a lack of monitoring was also an issue. He found that in some cases, officials in charge had never visited the projects.

There were also cases of completed ports that could not be operated because of a lack of access infrastructure, Wahju said. In these cases, the regional government in charge of developing roads may have abandoned their part of the deal.

“In one case, [the port] is 52 kilometers away from the nearest major road,” he said.

Wahju added that another issue was land status.

In Pangkalan Dodek, North Sumatra, for example, the land upon which a port was to be built had not been certified and a portion was even part of a conservation forest.

Wahju warned ministry officials against committing corruption, including those who had failed to prevent state losses.

The directorate general has seen two of its former heads arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for bribery, the most recent being Antonius Tonny Budiono who was arrested just last year.

Tonny allegedly received Rp 2.3 billion (US$165,830) in bribes in relation to a dredging project as part of the construction of Tanjung Mas port in Central Java.

The ministry has claimed to have built 104 ports between 2015 and 2017, and plans to build a total of 306 ports by 2019.

Last year, the directorate general received Rp 11.5 trillion from the state budget. Its allotment was increased slightly to Rp 11.6 trillion this year.

Infrastructure development is one of the trademarks of the President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo administration.

Meanwhile, the ministry’s sea transportation director general, Agus Purnomo, said the government would resolve the issues surrounding the dysfunctional ports.

“We can solve it by completing [the necessary] documents. Or if the issues can’t be resolved, maybe the regional governments can find a way to benefit from the ports,” he said.

Agus said the directorate general’s budget would be optimized this year.

“We are really stressing that whatever is built has to be of benefit. If there is no benefit, we will drop the project or reallocate it,” Agus said.

He declined to reveal the potential state losses from the problematic ports.

The ministry’s sea transportation directorate general secretary, Rudiana, said the port projects might also be used for tourism purposes.

Siswanto Rusdi, the director of the National Maritime Institute, said the problematic ports were the result of the ministry’s project-based approach to developing infrastructure.

“They get the budget and they don’t know what to do with it. So they just build a port without any prior studies, even if there aren’t any ships that want to go there. The most important thing [for them] is to disburse the budget,” he said.

He urged the government to audit the ministry, and to work with the KPK to find any indications of corruption.

“This has to stop,” he said.

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