The Indonesian government assumed that there was a false data in the manifest of the ship that sank off the coast of West Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Sunday.

"According to the crisis center in Pare-Pare (South Sulawesi) and Majene, 103 passengers were not found in the manifest," the leading website Vivanews on Wednesday quoted the Indonesian Transport Minister Jusman Syafii Djamal as saying.

Based on the manifest, there were 250 passengers excluding children were aboard when it went down in the early morning of Sunday. The capacity of the ship was 300 people, and it also carried around 200 tons of goods.

The minister also said that the ship operator did not install any standardized security equipment on the ill-fated ship.

(Xinhua News Agency January 14, 2009)