Maqbool Malik
Balochistan - The call of first-ever merchant ship Panamax class bulk carrier ‘POS Glory’ at deep-sea Gwadar Port in mysterious circumstances last month has raised many eyebrows.
Background discussions with shipping industry sources by The Nation have revealed likelihood of a deliberate attempt to bring POS Glory, 75,000DWT to cover up some major unlawful activity relating to country’s so-called first deep-sea port.
According to the sources, POS Glory was in fact too large a ship that could take berth at the port because of constraints relating to permissible draught to sail through the port’s navigation channel.
As a result the ship that sailed from Canada to discharge 72,000 tons of wheat at Gwadar was forced to anchor miles away in the sea and was made able to discharge remaining wheat only after offloading up to 9,000 tons by another merchant ship m.v. Hyderabad of national flag carrier, National Shipping Corporation of Pakistan (PNSC).
This, sources maintained, had led to increase in the cost of shipping the commodity at the user end.
Sources argued that call of POS Glory would not have caused such an embarrassing situation had the Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) maintained the planned 14.5-meter depth, whereas the existing depth of the channel and three operational multipurpose berths was stated to be 12.5 meters by the time the POS Glory reached the outer anchorage of the port.
Sources blamed the GPA to be largely responsible for the mess created by the arrival of such a large ship, and apprehended that the port authority was caught in the middle because of its failure to maintain the required depth.
They also blamed the port manager and operator Singapore-based firm PSA and its Pakistani associates that have been favoured by the former government by awarding unprecedented 40 years tax free concession in February 2007 and could have advised the GPA not to allow call to POS Glory in the given situation.
Since the award last year, the PSA has neither made any worth mentioning investment nor has it installed any cargo handling equipment as per the agreement. Sources said the company had recently undertaken installation of container handling cranes.
Sources further pointed out that the PSA had no operational activity in the entire Middle East region after it abandoned the Aden port few years ago but had secured the Gwadar Port concession although there were two other potential investors including the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports Holdings and Dubai-based DP World.
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Apr-2008/3/index5.php |
