Unloading, delivery hampered due to hartal, strike; 12 lakh tonnes of imported goods await delivery
Containers are stacked at the jetty of Chittagong Port yesterday as they had not been delivered due to back to back hartals and a week-long workers’ strike. Photo: Anurup Kanti Das
All is not well in Chittagong Port. Recurrent hartals coupled with an ongoing work abstention by water transport workers have left the delivery of imports in a shambles.
Thanks to the latest spate of BNP and Jamaat-Shibir’s four-day shutdown and a weeklong workers’ strike over pay hike, some 12 lakh tonnes of goods were stranded at the port yards, different docks and on vessels as of Thursday.
The imports include sugar, wheat, lentil, salt, fertiliser, cement, clinker and lime stone.
On Thursday, however, a section of transport workers joined the work following assurances that their demands would be met. Over the last two days, 1-1.5 lakh tonnes of goods were unloaded from a number of vessels.
Port sources say hartals and work abstentions hamper the delivery cycle greatly, and it is the general people and factory owners who bear the brunt.
Prices go up in case of supply shortages, and production is badly hampered, even halted, when raw materials do not reach factories on time, they note.
A large number of containers lay at different yards, as frequent hartals in the last couple of months hit hard the delivery of imports from Chittagong Port to other parts of the country. The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) is now making extra efforts for quick delivery.
Till Thursday, 21,347 TEUs (twenty equivalent units) of goods-laden containers were stranded at the port, according to CPA data.
CPA Secretary Syed Farhad Uddin Ahmed agreed that hartals and strikes did hamper the delivery cycle, but said this could not be seen as congestion given the port had capacity for 30,000 TEUs.
But importers see this as a mess and say they are paying heavily for this.
BSM Group Chairman Abul Bashar Chowdhury, for example, imported over 35,000 tonnes of wheat and lentil that arrived in a ship on April 2.
All but 5,000 tonnes of his imports are yet to be unloaded, he said, adding that he was to pay the shipping company $14,000 for each day’s overstay. The ship has already overstayed eight days for which he would have to pay $1,12,000.
Bashar told The Daily Star that importers would be forced to recover the additional cost by selling goods at an increased price, which would ultimately be borne by the consumers.
Chittagong Port had already been reeling from recurrent hartals over the past few months. But things worsened on April 4, when general workers of lighter vessels that carry goods from mother vessels to different destinations began a strike over a 20 percent pay rise and security on waterways.
As a result, 26 cargo vessels with around 7.5 lakh tonnes of imports got stranded at the outer anchorage as of Thursday.
On Wednesday night, workers of some 150 lighter vessels owned by different industries joined the work after a meeting between BIWTA and Naujan Sramik Federation, said Chowdhury Ashiqul Alam, general secretary of the federation.
But workers of 373 lighter vessels owned by Bangladesh Cargo Vessel Owners Association and Coastal Ship Owners Association of Bangladesh are still on strike, as their owners are unwilling to meet the demands, he added.
The decision about a 20 percent pay hike was made at a meeting on January 11 where Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan was present, Ashiqul said.
Source: The Daily Star