The Pakistan Ship Agents Association (PSAA) has strongly protested against the "unfair and illegal" attitude of Port Qasim Authority (PQA) Revenue Department for demanding extra berth hire from shipping agents.
In a letter, sent by the PSAA Vice-Chairman, Rear Admiral S.H.Khalid (retd), to PQA Chairman, Vice-Admiral T.M.Khattak, it has pointed out that the shipping agents are being asked to meet this demand before No Demand Certificate (NDC) can be issued for delays on account of non-availability of tugs and pilot boats.
The shipping agents have made such payments under protest. The port users are seriously perturbed over this behaviour of the PQA management.
Operational problems due to the "inefficiency and insufficiency" of tugs and pilot boats have been a cause of serious concern to the shipping agents.
The PSAA has received a number of complaints from the members. Presently, the PQA does not have even a regular pilot boat and all pilotage activities are being catered through the PQA's inefficient tugs.
These tugs often become non-operational, resulting in serious delays in berthing/sailing of the ships, causing huge losses to ship owners.
Every day about four to five ships are berthed at PQA. Some are bigger (container, iron ore/coal, petroleum ships) and some are smaller (chemical, palm oil ships).
Despite this, the PQA has no contingency plans/measures to keep the port operational.
On a number of occasions, vessels after completing discharge could not sail out due to the non-availability of tugs-pilot boats.
The PSAA letter said that due to the inefficiency of PQA, ship-owners were suffering in two ways, firstly by paying additional port charges and secondly by paying additional cost of charter hire. Average charter hire of smaller vessels is about 15,000 dollars per day and the bigger vessels are about 30,000 dollars per day.
"Few of the vessels suffered delays of more than one day and one can simply multiply the total impact of losses to the ship-owners," it said.
The PSAA said: "When shipping agents contacted the PQA, the excuse given was shortage of tugs/pilot boats, very strong winds, high swell, etc.
"At the same time, when it comes to giving any special favours, for the reasons best known to them, all these constraints disappear.
"For example, the PQA berthed a tanker vessel at 9 30 pm on June 22.
"We feel," the letter said, "the PQA should immediately take steps on war footing for redressal of this situation and refund berth hire charged unjustly from shipping agents for the delays which are due to no fault of the agent."
The PSAA regretted the indifference of the PQA Chairman towards the association. It said that it had been trying to seek appointment with him for the last nine months to discuss this issue and other matters, affecting the port users, but there had been no response so far.
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