The strike-breakers are said to have continued steering the foreign ships into the country's largest harbour on Friday, whereas Karachi Port Trust (KPT) claims it has reached an agreement with the masters of the pilot boats to end their strike the other night.
Sources told Business Recorder that the strike-breakers had brought the downgraded shipping transportation back to normality at the seaport after three days, as masters of the pilot boats were still on the strike. But spokesman of the trust denied the masters were on the strike, saying KPT had reached an agreement with the strikers at about Thursday midnight who ended their three-day protest and resumed their jobs.
"KPT has assured them [masters of pilot boats] of solving their problems and meeting their demands of allowances and perks to end the strike," the spokesman said, adding the shipping in-out transportation had resumed at full scale. Sources said there had been no such ships at the outer anchorage and traffic of incoming and outgoing vessels had been as normal. They said another Deputy Conservator (DC) Captain Saeed had joined the existing batch of strike-breakers. "The strike-breakers are now five to control the ships in-out traffic," they said.
Shipping experts termed the masters' strike "insignificant" to affect any harbour activities, saying the Port Qasim was the major recipient of vessels arrival and not the Karachi port. Talking to Business Recorder a leading shipping expert, Naeem Malik said about 80 percent of import and export was taking place at Port Qasim, the second largest seaport of the country.
However, he agreed the strike might have affected the arrival of oil tankers at the harbour for there was already fuel shortage in the country. He said Karachi port was dealing largely in bulk-cargo or traditional consignments and big shipping lines like APL, CMA etc, voyaged to Port Qasim.
The KPT's Deputy Conservator (DC), Shaukat, Harbour Master (HM) Shakeel Babar, Assistance HM, Atif alias Tony and Dock Master (DM) Jamal made efforts on Thursday to somewhat offset the strike's impact by taking charge as pilots. The move helped the shipping traffic to reactivate the port operations to some extent.