"The president has a schedule to visit Banda."Ambon (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is expected to inaugurate a number of projects in Maluku, Maluku Governor Karel Albert Ralahalu has said.
"Developed with funds taken from the state and regional budget, most of the projects are in the transportation sector," the governor said when he was contacted on Saturday.
The inauguration ceremony whose schedule is still being communicated with the State Place is expected to be centered in Tual city. Works are undergoing to complete the construction of a seaport and an airport in Tual.
A team from the Ministry of Transportation has observed the progress of works in Tual at the end of last month.
"The president has a schedule to visit Banda, Central Maluku District, but we hope that the president would also inaugurate projects in Tual City," the governor said.
He said that his side was hoping to realize the construction of Trans Maluku project which was aimed at opening the isolation of islands in the region which consisted of 1,340 isles and 92.4 percent water areas. Its total land and water areas cover 712,479.65 sq km.
He said that if the Trans-Maluku construction was realized, travelers from Papau could pass through Malauku to East Nusa Tenggara, Surabaya in East Java, Jakarta and Sumatra.
"We are programming the Trans Maluku in an integrated sea and land transportation connection so that people from Papua could go to Aceh through Maluku," he said.
In the meantime, Head of Maluku Transportation Service Ujir Halid said that his region still needed a total of nine state-owned ships to serve pioneer routes.
"Maluku has 15 pioneer routes but only six have been served by state-owned ships. We hope that the number of the ships would be increased in stages in accordance with the state financial capability," he said.
He said that private-owned ships still could not maximize their services so that passengers often complained.
"We hope proposed to the transportation ministry that it should gradually increase the number of ships so that the domination of the route services by private ships could be reduced," Ujir said.
He said that on the national scale, there were 80 pioneer sea-sailing routes of which sate-owned ships only serve 32 routes.
Ujir acknowledged that the private ships had not yet served the routes optimally so that it often invited complaints from transportation service users.
"That is why we are encouraging the realization of the development of the trans Maluku transportation scheme which is integrated into a sea and land transportation system so that pioneer route services could be optimized," he said.
Touching on the procurement of sea transportation means in 2012, he said that his side was also communicating with the state palace for the inauguration of seven ships by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in March 2013.
The seven ships included five units of ferries and two pioneer ships. The inauguration of the seven ships is being arranged by the ministry of transportation.
(Editing by Andi Abdussalam; Check-editing by Otniel Tamindael)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
