Toxic ships to sail in smoothly

A ship-breaking yard in Sitakunda. Every year a number of toxic ships are dismantled without proper safety measures here, posing health risk for the workers and causing widespread environmental pollution. Photo: File

Bypassing the court's clear directives to ensure import of toxin-free ships, the government yesterday altered an import policy order, which will help ship-breakers import toxic ships.
Without considering the country's environmental aspects and workers' safety, a certain quarter within the government allegedly changed the policy order in a way that exporters themselves will now certify their ships as not toxic.
Commerce Minister Faruk Khan told reporters that the change in the import policy order for ships to be scrapped was decided at an inter-ministerial meeting considering the development of the country.
Following a High Court directive dated March 17, 2009, the commerce ministry incorporated a condition in its Import Policy Order 2009-2012 that an exporter has to submit a pre-cleaning certificate from a state agency of its country saying the ship is cleaned before export. The importer will have to submit that certificate to the authorities here.
But now the company that sells the ships will provide this certificate saying all toxic substances are cleaned, Faruk said.
Shipyard owners were reluctant to go by the old policy since pre-cleaning of toxic substances including asbestos involves huge cost and reduces their profit.
They allegedly lobbied with some high officials and ministers for changing the policy.
Before the policy was formulated, the exporter still had to provide this clearance certificate, but that was not legally binding and no one could be sued for providing false information.
The High Court in its directive ordered the government to make the policy as per the Basel Convention 1989, which says no country can export or import toxic waste or ships containing toxic substances.
Interestingly, the environment ministry itself took a position in favour of polluters and requested the commerce ministry to relax the import policy. It also allows shipyard owners to operate without taking any environmental clearance certificate, sources said.
Commerce Minister Faruk Khan yesterday said, "From now on the Department of Environment will verify if the imported scrap ships were really cleaned according to the certification."
The government considered both development and environmental issues while changing the previous decision, he added.
A source working with the ministry concerned said as huge money is involved in this business, some high-ups of the commerce, shipping and environment ministries are keen to favour the shipyard owners.
Import of such toxic ships poses risks of health for ship-breaking workers and widespread environmental pollution in the country's coastal belt.
Every year around 100 ships are scrapped in Sitakunda, meeting around 25 percent demand of iron scraps for producing iron bars.
But it takes heavy tolls on the lives of the workers. In the last two years, 38 workers died and 49 became maimed while working in shipyards.
According to a report of the International Labour Organisation, 551 minor and 42 major accidents took place in Bangladesh's 36 ship-breaking yards during 1996-1998.