New tugs named after Ghauri, his son: shouldn't KPT title its assets after national heroes?

It is an internationally recognised practice among comity of the nations that the national assets are named after the revered national heroes. The tendency, however, is completely different when it comes to the KPT where the successive chief executives, most of them in the uniform, demonstrated a self-centric approach and gave precedence to their loved ones over the national heroes whenever the need arose for naming any of the operator's new belongings.
Ironically, this time a new category has been added in the list of those notables who, as they might think, are entitled to this privilege. The new category encompasses the federal minister for ports and shipping. The official sources in the KPT told Business Recorder that the two 60-70 tons bollard pull (tbp) ASD tugs, which the KPT has acquired from a Turkish shipyard at a huge cost of 16 million Euro, have been named as "Ghauri" and "Sheraz".
Whereas the first name belongs to the federal minister himself the second name is that of his youngest 12-year son, the sources confirmed. They said "Ghauri" and "Sheraz", which were scheduled to arrive in the country in September and December last year, would now be approaching respectively on March 26 and April 2 from Ankara. Many of the KPT's belongings, whether they are part of its fleet or other port infrastructure, could be found as named after a close relative of KPT chairmen.
This approach could be traced back in early part of the 20th century when Napier Mole Boat (NMB), the then governor of Karachi, had named Gate Number 17, where loose cargo is handled, at Keamari East Wharf as "NMB Wharf". The gate is even today called "NMB Wharf" with no elected or un-elected government of Pakistan bothering to name it after any of our national/religious heroes.
Similarly, Mohammad Ishaq Arshad, who had chaired the KPT for at least eight years in the times of President 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 could also be found in the KPT fleet which either belong to a man on the helm himself or one of his kin.
With the passage of time this trend gained roots and remained very much in practice during the tenure of Haque's predecessor, Vice Admiral (Retd) Ahmed Hayat who chaired the KPT from 2001 to 2008. According to sources, "ABUL", a state-of-the-art Trailer Suction Hopper Dredger that was procured by the KPT from Netherlands at 50.73 million Euro, was named after father of the former KPT chief.
"Ali", "Ahsan" and "Ahad" are the respective names of a backhoe dredger and two barges which were named after sons of the former deputy naval chief, they added. The sources said even a small survey boat at "ABUL", "Fatma", was named after a closed female relative of the retired vice admiral. Changing civilian names of the KPT belongings is another tendency that was noticed during the naval regimes.
The sources claimed that a KPT chairman in uniform had changed the name of "Izhar Abbasi Hospital" into "KPT Hospital" only because the former was a civilian name. If true, this approach is likely to widen gap between two major stratum of the country namely, the civilians and armed forces.
Same was the case with "Benazir Sports Complex" which was renamed as "KPT Sports Complex" soon after second reign of the PPP had ended in early 90s, Business Recorder learnt. The civilian government was; however, quick in restoring previous name of the stadium soon after it came to power after February 18 elections.
The former KPT chief had also named Gate Number-1 at Keamari East Wharf after Commodore Hussain Bin Khamis, a Traffic Manager in KPT. The picture is not so gloomy, as the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) is an institution worth being followed. Having a national approach, the Corporation tends to name its shipping fleet after major cities, like M/T Lahore and M/T Karachi, "MT Quetta", M/T Swat and so on. When contacted for comments the KPT spokesman referred this reporter to the chairperson, who was not available for commenting.