Loading and unloading disrupted at Ctg port
Publication Date: 24 August, 2016
Media: The Independent
Original URL : Loading and unloading disrupted at Ctg port
E-paper URL: Loading and unloading disrupted at Ctg port
Loading and unloading operations at Chittagong port and its 16 adjacent wharves have been affected, with workers of lighter vessels going on strike from Monday night.
“All the loading and unloading activities at the outer anchorage have been suspended due to the strike,” said Chittagong Port Authority’s director (administration and planning) Zafar Alam.
The water transport workers went on indefinite strike across the country from Monday midnight to press home their 15-point charter of demands, including a wage hike. The Water Transport Cell said 32 mother vessels were waiting to offload 5,50,000 tonnes of cargoes, comprising imported goods like wheat, fertilisers, salt, gypsum, raw materials of tiles, scarps and clinker at mid-sea. With unloading operations suspended, each mother vessel has been counting USD 7,000 to USD 15,000 as demurrage every day. As a result of the work stoppage, loading and unloading of goods on and from lighter vessels, too, have remained suspended at the 16 wharves on the Karnaphuli. The lighter vessels were waiting at the berths to unload 200,000 tonnes of goods from Monday night.
“All loading and unloading activities have been suspended at all the 16 wharves from Monday night. If the goods are not unloaded, the owners will have to count Tk. 12 per tonne as daily demurrage,” said Ghat Contractors’ Association president Abul Hashem. A total of 2,100 lighter vessels stood idle across the country, while around 611 of them, with 7,22,000 tonnes of cargo, were waiting at various jetties for unloading to begin, said the Water Transport Cell. Earlier, on Sunday, following a strike called by the association of owners and workers of prime mover trailers, container handling had almost come to a halt at the Chittagong port. Around 7,000 prime movers did not work on Sunday. However, following assurances by city mayor AJM Nasir Uddin, they postponed their strike by a month. Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) president and Port Users’ Forum chairman Mahabubul Alam told The Independent, “We are the sufferers because of the strike.
