Privatisation of port services may affect 30% of workforce

Chittagong: The Chittagong Port Authority’s move to privatise its services will enhance the port’s efficiency and reduce costs, but it may make 30 per cent of the existing workforce redundant due to automation, port officials and users said.

Around 30,000 labourers including registered, non registered and casual ones are involved in the total operation of Chittagong Port.

Of them, 4,200 dock workers are registered with dock labour management board that looks after the interests of labourers, port sources said.

Port users and officials said privatisation of key services was long-overdue as uncontrolled and politically-motivated trade unionism, coupled with massive corruption at all stages, turned the country’s prime seaport into one of the world’s most inefficient and expensive ports.

Poor and time-consuming services were costing Bangladesh external trades heavily, eroding its global competitiveness and inflating prices of imported goods.

The port, which handles more than 90 per cent of the country’s $25 billion annual external trade, was mostly dogged by congestion and labour unrests, requiring a ship more than a week to unload and load containers.

Previous moves initiated by political governments to contract out some of the port services encountered strong opposition from unions, which often went for wildcat strikes, paralysing the port.

After the interim government took over office in January, the port authorities initiated fresh move to privatise some services to enhance the efficiency and reduce cost of the country’s prime seaport.

The recent arrest of Chittagong city mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury, who is believed to be one of the key patrons of port labourers, made it even easier for the port authority to proceed faster with the planned privatisation, sources said.

A number of top union leaders were also arrested, meanwhile.

‘Now our main target is to make the port more efficient and we are working on it relentlessly,’ said Ahsanul Kabir, director (traffic) of CPA.

‘As part of the new plan, we have already handed over the operation of our container terminal to a private firm in a bid to improve handling services and we are now considering gradually handover of operations of all the 13 jetties to private berth operators to be selected through open tenders,’ he added.

‘Privatisation of services may reduce labour force requirement by 30 per cent, while overall costs will also come down significantly,’ the port official said, referring to planned modernisation of services which will depend more on sophisticated equipment than on manual labour.

Acting vice chairman of dock labour management board at Chittagong Port, Sadeka Begum said that with the privatisation of the lone container terminal and other services have decreased job opportunities by 30 to 35 per cent.

‘But I can’t say what will happen next. Moreover, some 600 workers registered with dock labour management board are supposed to go on retirement shortly,’ she added.

Another senior official of Chittagong Port said, ‘Job loss figures may cross 30 per cent of the total workforce if the planned privatisation is implemented in full.’

The partial privatisation has started giving its dividend, the official claimed, saying that handing over of the container terminal to private sector has helped the port save Tk 8 lakh per ship.

The biggest container terminal, Newmooring container terminal, which is now under construction, will also go to private sector once it will be commissioned by the yearend. The new terminal will have a capacity to handle 5,00,000 containers annually, he added.

General manager of a foreign feeder ship company, Rafiqul Islam said, ‘Privatisation of services has made the port operations faster. Practice of paying bribe or tips has also come under control’.

A feeder ship of their company now can depart from Chittagong Port in 48 hours after arrival, while the turnround time earlier was a wee