Unfit vessels allowed to operate at Ctg port
Underhand dealings with ship surveyors alleged
Staff Correspondent
Many unfit and unsurveyed inland ships are sailing in and around the Chittagong Port channel and the Bay of Bengal misusing temporary 'tokens' issued by a section of dishonest ship surveyors in exchange for money. Some vessels also ply in the Bay of Bengal even without the 'Bay crossing permission' by the Department of Shipping, sources said. Besides, many vessels get undue extension of the tokens issued as per Inland Shipping Ordinance (ISO) with 45-day validity, through underhand dealings. A surveyor posted in Barisal is mainly involved in such illegal practices, the sources alleged. The magistrate of Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) detained a few such ships last month with illegally renewed temporary tokens and without Bay crossing permissions. A master of one such ship, MV Malek, detained on November 12, confessed to the magistrate that no surveyor has ever boarded the ship, adding that the vessel was in Chittagong Port for quite sometime. He also confessed in his written statement that he used to get tokens regularly by couriers and validity of the token was extended twice. Following the incident, the magistrate court ordered the director general (DG) of shipping to cancel the token as well as to take legal action against the offenders. The department cancelled the token but no action was taken against the surveyor. According to the sources, the accused surveyor is very powerful and the department had failed to take actions against him earlier even after a number of such cases of violation of rules against him. On March 19 this year, an inland vessel, MV Altaf, sank near Hatia, which had a Bay crossing permit issued by the same surveyor without the endorsement of the Department of Shipping. Later, an investigation found that the vessel was not even fit for plying the inland waters. In another case, a token was issued for MV Al-MIM from Barisal while the ship was in Chittagong. The master of the vessel later confessed to the magistrate court that the ship never went to Barisal but he received the token with the surveyor's endorsement. In another incident, an inland ship, MV Shumi, sank in the outer anchorage of Chittagong Port due to a very weak hull. The token for the ship was also issued by the same surveyor from Barisal in February 2006.
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