Ctg port’s outer anchorage comes to a standstill

Water transport workers have gone on a strike demanding a pay hike, suspending unloading of imported goods at the Chattogram port's outer anchorage and their subsequent transportation across the country since the early hours of yesterday.

However, the port's main jetties have remained functional.

Large ships exceeding the port's maximum permissible draft transfer their goods onto lighters at the outer anchorage to get those to the mainland.

The lighters have stayed put, leaving, according to port sources, at least 30 ships loaded with imported goods waiting at the outer anchorage till filing of this report yesterday evening.

The goods include wheat, raw sugar, lentils, limestone, cement clinker, stone and coal.

Arriving on November 18, MV Europa Bay was lucky enough to unload most of its 57,000 tonne-cargo of limestone and stone before the strike was announced.

Only 9,355 tonnes remain on board, which could be unloaded in a day, according to Md Sarwar Hossain, director of Bornali Corporation, which is providing different services to the ship.

Now the charterer is having to pay $25,000 in demurrages for each day of additional stay, he said.

In addition, over 700 lighters loaded with goods have stayed anchored at 41 areas around the country, said Water Transport Cell, a private organisation that coordinates movement of a major portion of these vessels.

The areas include Chattogram, Dhaka, Narayanganj, Ghorashal, Khulna, Barishal, Pagla, Ashuganj, Bhairab and Faridpur.

Water transport workers under the platform Noujan Sramik Sangram Parishad enforced the indefinite countrywide work abstention from 12:01am yesterday with a 10-point demand.

They include a minimum monthly wage of Tk 20,000 and Tk 10 lakh as compensation for both natural and accidental deaths of workers at work.

Bangladesh Water Transport Workers Federation, a platform of eight workers' organisations, expressed solidarity with the work abstention.

Nabi Alam, joint general secretary of the federation, said after a movement, the government fixed the minimum wage in the range of Tk 5,700 to Tk 6,800 for five years and it was supposed to be raised in June last year.

Once the time came, the federation leaders started demanding it, but the government and vessel owners did not pay any heed to it, he said.

The Department of Labour in September promised to form a committee by October 20.

Seeing no progress till date, workers are unwilling to wait further and want to wage a tough movement, he said.

He said as prices of all commodities were rising, wages needed to be raised.

Expressing concern, Mahbubul Alam, president of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry, believes it was "really illogical" to call a strike at the most important logistics sector of the country when the economy was already in hardship.

Importers and traders are already struggling with international market volatilities and the workers should not hold everyone hostage, he said.

He also urged the government to take the initiatives to resolve the stalemate in business activities.