Unrest hits ports activities

Chittagong: Ports activities at Chittagong and Mongla remained almost inoperative on Sunday while there have been no activities at Benapole landport for the last three days due to political unrest and in support of the opposition’s countrywide blockade programme triggering severe cargo congestion at jetties.


Report from Chittagong said political unrest coupled with Eid holidays crippled activities at the country’s main seaport leading to container congestion that forced its authorities to suspend cargo handling from Sunday.


About 35 ships were waiting to be unloaded at the Chittagong port that handles more than 90 per cent of the country’s 24 billion dollar foreign trade, sources said.


‘Unloading of containers from vessels anchored at the port jetties was halted from Sunday due to lack of space at port yards while container congestion reached a critical state,’ said the chairman of Chittagong Port Authority, Shahadat Hossain.


‘Already over 19,000 containers piled up at the port yards leaving no other space at all. So we were forced to suspend cargo handling,’ he added saying ‘the crisis stemmed from slow delivery of containers from the port due to holiday hangover and political unrest.’


Chittagong port has the capacity to accommodate only 13,000 containers, he said.


‘The consignees are not taking risk to take delivery of their containers at such a volatile situation while transport movement over roads and highways came to a halt. Even during Eid holidays we kept the port open, but the consignees took delivery of very poor number of containers. As a result, containers unloaded from the ships triggered congestion,’ the chairman said.


As unloading of cargoes remained suspended, loading of export cargoes was also stopped forcing ships to wait for days together beyond schedule incurring huge operational costs, port and shipping officials said.


‘The congestion may not ease and cargo handling may not resume until and unless the consignees expedite delivery of their containers from port yards,’ said the director (traffic) of CPA, Ahsanul Kabir.


‘A large number containers already unloaded from ships blocked the whole of the port yards in the past few days. Even it has become difficult to move port equipment inside the yards due to space congestion,’ he added.


Port officials said that 35 cargo vessels including 15 of them at the outer anchorage fell stranded here due to the ongoing stalemate. Some oher vessels on way to Chittagong port also may join the ship congestion in the next few days, they added.


‘Chittagong port may collapse totally if the stalemate in cargo handling and delivery lingers for few more days,’ said the senior vice-chairman of Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association (BSAA), Ahsanul Huq Chowdhury.


‘Obviously it will leave negative impact on our country’s economy and trade,’ he observed.


Meanwhile, there had been no loading and unloading at the Mongla sea port yard for the last three days as the Mongla


Port Shramik Sangha, the collective bargaining agent for the workers of the port, continued to abstain from work in

solidarity with the opposition combine’s blockade programme.


The port, however, does not have any ship at any of its jetty, said Mongla Port Authority member (engineering), Ruhul Amin on Sunday noon, claiming that everything was now going ‘normal.’


The Mongla Port Stevedores’ Association president, Syed Mustahid Ali said they had no major work at the port as the port had no ship anchored but the work of loading goods on trucks remained suspended as the workers declared not to work at the port.


No goods came to the port from other parts of the country during the last three days fearing that they would have to leave the goods idle due to lack of workforce, he added.


The Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters’ Association vice-president, Quazi Belayet Hossain, said the exporters could incur huge losses if work at the