While national assets should be named after national heroes and other prominent figures, who have ever done an outstanding job for the betterment of mankind or a particular nation, tendency in Karachi Port Trust (KPT) is very much contrary to this.
Many, if not most, of KPT's belongings, whether part of its fleet or other port infrastructure, could be found as named after a close relative of the successive KPT Chairmen, a majority of them are from the armed forces over the past many years.
This self-centric approach in naming KPT assets could be raced backed in early part of the 20th century when Napier Mole Boat (NMB), the then governor of Karachi, named Gate Number 17, where loose cargo is handled, at Keamari East Wharf as 'NMB Wharf'. Even today the gate is called 'NMB Wharf' and no previous government dared/bothered to keep it after the name of anyone of national/religious leaders.
As an example, Mian Ishaq Arshad, who chaired the Trust for at least eight years during the tenure of General Zia-ul-Haq, had named a cargo yard at West Wharf after his name, which is still known as M.I Yard. Names like 'Karamat', 'Mehmoodul Hasan', 'Farah', 'Aminuddin' etc can also be found in the KPT fleet which either belonged to a man at the helm himself or one of his close relatives.
Even today there are some examples at Karachi Port where a vessel or an entrance has been named after loved ones of the KPT chief. 'Abul', a state-of-the-art suction hopper dredger (TSHD), that has been recently procured by the KPT from Netherlands at a huge sum of 50.73 million euros, has been named after the father of the former KPT Chairman Vice Admiral Ahmed Hayat (2001-08), sources said.
According to sources a backhoe dredger and two barges have been named as 'Ali', 'Ahsan' and 'Ahad' respectively, with all three names being sons of Ahmed Hayat, the last KPT chairman in uniform. They said even a small survey boat at 'Abul', 'Fatma', was named after a close female relative of the former KPT chief. Another trend, the KPT chairmen from Pakistan Navy have persistently been following, sources said, was changing civilian names of the KPT belongings.
A uniformed chairman of the Trust had changed the name of 'Izhar Abbasi Hospital' to 'KPT Hospital', only because the former was a civilian name, claimed sources. Same was the case with 'Benazir Sports Complex', which was renamed as 'KPT Sports Complex' soon after Benazir's second tenure, they claimed. But now the new PPP-led coalition government has again restored name of the sports stadium, which is located in Kharadar area, after Benazir Bhutto.
In the recent past, the former KPT chairman had also named Gate Number-1 at Keamari East Wharf after Commodore Hussain Bin Khamis, a Traffic Manager in KPT who had died of cardiac arrest. This tribute-giving approach can, however, hardly be seen when it comes to civilian employees of the Trust with outstanding performance.
When contacted, a KPT official said the "KPT since 1886 has never taken care of national heroes in terms of naming the things in its possession." He said the chairmen successively had been keeping up the practice in question "to keep their names alive forever". "More or less all belongings of the KPT are named after relatives of the chairmen," he added. Another official, however, opined: "It was depicting what a head of the institution had achieved during his tenure and that's why not bad." At least, it would be fair if the KPT followed Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) which has recently, on July 10, 2008, acquired a double hull aframax oil tanker and named it as 'MT Quetta', one of the country's big cities.
As a watershed development on June 9, 2008 Nasrin Haque took the helm of KPT as a first lady civilian chief executive after the elapse of at least 18 years. So, let's keep the hope alive that the new civilian chairperson would not forget those who had the heroic accomplishments of laying their lives for the wellbeing of Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular at their disposal, when it comes to naming the things.
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