Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) is planning to scrap seven more cargo vessels of its fast-depleting shipping fleet by the end of next year, Business Recorder reliably learnt.
According to sources the move, which is justifiably aimed at ridding the national flag carrier of old and breakable ships, would, as a side effect, leave thousands of seamen registered at the roaster of PNSC without job.
A majority of 3,000 plus crew in PNSC had the doubt that some "unscrupulous" officials in the Corporation were sending selected and "out of category" seamen aboard on the basis of bribe ranging from Rs 80,000 to Rs 2 lac, they added.
The source said that by 2010 the PNSC would break at least seven of its cargo vessels, which would reduce the number of its 11-vessel shipping fleet to four (oil tankers) only. It may be recalled that PNSC has already scrapped four of its breakable cargo ships, three in Gadani and one in Bangladesh, in the recent past.
If not compensated with the induction of new vessels, the fast-paced decline in the number of national flag careers is likely to fall heavily on thousands of seamen in PNSC, many of whom are desperately awaiting embarkation for years.
The seamen at Keamari Seamen Hostel accuse the PNSC officials of mobilising an active group of "middlemen" in search of those seamen who intend to pay for embarkation.
It may be mentioned here that the 1974-built Seamen Hostel is in a dilapidated condition and is awaiting government''s attention for maintenance and the provision of basic facilities, like water, sewerage etc. Brushing aside the "baseless talks" of bribery, a PNSC official had earlier attributed the seamen''s unemployment to the "shortage of work" in the wake of global financial crises.