BANTEN: Safety inspectors have seized hundreds of items of marine safety equipment aboard ferries crossing the Sunda Strait in Merak Port, Banten, due to their allegedly falsified expiry dates.
Port authority head Dalle Effendi said Tuesday the confiscated equipment had expired in 1998 but the expiry date on its packaging was 2010.
The safety equipment, including smoke flares, rockets and emergency food supplies, was stored in 25 lifeboats aboard a number of ferries.
Dalle, however, did not identify the ferries, saying only that the investigation was ongoing.
He said ferry crew members had tried to convince the safety inspectors the equipment had been checked and would not expire until 2010.
Besides keeping the ferries from leaving the port, the port authority also sent out a letter notifying sea safety equipment companies of the finding.
The port authority had previously acknowledged that more than half of the ferries sailing from Merak Port to Bakauheni on Sumatra island did not meet international safety standards.
According to Dalle, the central government was largely to blame for not putting a limit on the age of vessels. Therefore, he urged the Transportation Ministry to ban vessels over the age of 20 years from operating, for passengers' safety.
"Setting an age limit will help minimize accidents at sea," he said, adding that the age of ferries crossing the Sunda Strait ranged from 15 to 37 years.
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