Ministry, agents lock horns over new cranes usage fee

Chittagong: Four rail mounted gantry cranes were commissioned at the Chittagong Port on Monday with the shipping agents and feeder vessel operators boycotting the commissioning ceremony on the plea of additional charges.


They also vowed not to use the sophisticated cranes imported from Japan and installed at the container terminal by the Chittagong Port Authority at a cost of Tk 150 crore.


The Shipping Minister, Akbar Hossain, and the Fisheries and Livestock Minister, Abdullah Al Noman, were respectively present as the chief guest and the special guest at the function arranged to formally commission the cranes, which will accelerate the operational activities in the port. The CPA Chairman, Shahadat Hossain, chaired the function.


Commissioning of the cranes will increase the per hour container handling capacity to 100 TEUs from 30 TEUs and bring down turnaround period of ships in the port, now 4.24 days on an average, to about a half, port sources said.


Akbar said commissioning of the cranes would bring dynamism in the operational activities of the port ultimately making both the government and the port users benefited.


‘Modernisation of the port will help us to compete with other ports in the region,’ he said and added construction of the New Mooring container terminal would be completed by September and it would reduce pressure on the Chittagong Port.


Earlier, the Shipping Agents Association and the feeder vessel operators who boycotted the commissioning ceremony held talks with the Shipping Minister on the imposition of extra charges for using the cranes.


In the unscheduled meeting, they urged the Minister to allow them using the cranes free of cost for six months, but Akbar offered them half of the charges the CPA had fixed for using the cranes.


‘I asked the shipping agents to pay half of the newly imposed charges, but they want to enjoy this modern equipment free of cost. How is it possible?’ Akbar told the commissioning ceremony.


The Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association later held a press conference demanding withdrawal of the additional charges, and threatened to refrain from using the cranes, otherwise.


‘We sought a six-month trial operation of the cranes free of additional charges. If we find that the turn around period of ship comes to 36 hours from 4 to 5 days, we will pay additional charges through a negotiation,’ the Association President, Pervez Sazzad Akter, said. ‘If we don’t get benefit why should we pay the extra charges?’.