Mariners not okay with 'move to give CDCs to fishers'

Bangladesh Marine Academy graduates yesterday expressed their disapproval of an alleged move to provide Continuous Discharge Certificates (CDC), a type of experience logbook of mariners issued under the shipping ministry, to graduates of Bangladesh Marine Fisheries Academy.

They claimed that CDCs were exclusively meant for mariners of merchant vessels and the move would prompt International Maritime Organization to blacklist Bangladesh as there was a “difference in training” at the two academies.

It will also saturate the job market, making it harder for around 50 percent of the 8,700 merchant mariners who are currently unemployed, they added.

Reading out a written statement at a press conference in Chittagong Press Club, Ashraf Ibn Noor, president of Juldia Marine Academy Alumni Association, demanded that the prime minister intervenes in the matter.

Later around 100 marine academy graduates formed a human chain demanding that the government forms a commission to address the issues, including complexities visa applicants face, a decrease in the number of Bangladeshi merchant vessels and issuance of handwritten CDCs and COCs (Certificate of Competency).

No big budget is required as the government's sincerity, correct planning and diplomatic efforts will do, they added.

Ashraf claimed that, as per a government report, the number of Bangladeshi merchant vessels had decreased while ones for fishing increased and that 60 percent of the posts for officers in 269 fishing vessels were vacant.

Contacted over the phone, Department of Shipping Director General Commodore Zakiur Rahman Bhuiyan said a new committee was formed recently to look into the issues as another formed in 2013 had made a probe report contradicting its own recommendations.

The contradiction was that though it found out about the vacant posts, it had recommended giving CDCs to fisheries graduates so that they could serve in merchant vessels, he said.