KUCHING, April 13 — Senari Terminal’s port operation has returned to normal following the restoration of its computer system after an outage at the end of last month, the Kuching Port Authority (KPA) said.

"By today, the volume of delivery and receiving has returned to the normal volume before the incident,” said KPA General Manager Robert Lau in a press statement.

The terminal suffered the computer outage on March 29 which resulted in delays for 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.

Lau said since the outage, KPA had implemented alternative procedures to continue its delivery service, which combined manual procedures with on-line application and its back-up server in Pending Terminal.

He said the Sarawak Forwarding Agencies Association (SFAA) and Malaysia Ship Owners’ Association (MASA) and other hauliers had been duly informed on the outage, adding that meetings were held with SFAA on March 31 and April 8 and with MASA on April 6.

 "The usual time for container delivery is about 45 minutes to one hour but as a result of the accident, there are delays in delivery.

"The slowness in delivery is due to certain manual processes which will be improved by on-line application,” Lau explained.

Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman Chong Chieng Jen had said on Saturday that the computer outage had reduced the rate of retrieval of containers by more than 50 per cent as the process of container receiving and delivery had to be done manually.

"In this era of technology, it is most unbelievable and unacceptable that the computer system for such an important service of a government agency can break down for such a long time and without any indication when the system will be restored for operation,” he said. — Borneo Post Online