By Dharisha Bastians
Foreign merchant vessels will rethink docking at the Hambantota Port after protesting dock workers seized a Japanese ship and sprevented it leaving the harbour for four days, local shipping agents said yesterday.
Tressel Silva, Operations Manager for ABC Shipping, the local agent for the Japanese owned vessel seized by workers, said another ship owned by the same company was scheduled to dock in Hambantota on 17 December.
“We are now discussing with our principals about the possibility of diverting this vessel to Colombo to unload its cargo, especially since the strike is still on in Hambantota,” Silva told Daily FT in an interview yesterday.
“Foreign companies will think twice about sending ships to Hambantota under these circumstances,” Silva noted.
The ABC Shipping Operations Manager said that the company had made representations personally to President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Ports Minister Arjuna Ranatunga to secure the release of the vessel.
Hyperion Highway, a vessel owned by Japanese company K Line shipping which docked at the Hambantota harbour on 6 December was held hostage by port workers demanding permanent employment at the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).
Hyperion Highway which had a foreign crew comprising Indonesians and Filipinos onboard was prevented from leaving port after striking dock workers lowered gantry cranes and positioned forklifts to make it impossible to unmoor the ship for departure. The Japanese owned vessel was finally rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy on Sunday (11) which escorted the merchant ship with its cargo of vehicles out of the harbour in offshore patrol vessels.
While there had been no damage to the ship or the foreign crew during the seizure, Silva said the company had suffered estimated losses of up to $ 400,000 owing to delays leaving the Hambantota Port.
Hyperion Highway’s next port of call was Sohar, Oman, and the local agent said that the company had already received letters of protest from agents in the Gulf port about its failure to deliver the cargo at the destination on the promised date.
For nearly a week now, 438 workers attached to the private port management company Magampura Port Management Company (MPMC) have been engaged in protests demanding induction into the permanent cadre of the State-owned SLPA.
The dock workers fear job losses in the wake of a Government deal to transfer an 80% stake in the loss-making Hambantota Port to the Chinese owned China Merchant Ports Holding Company as a public-private partnership.
Ports Minister Ranatunga condemned the seizure of the international vessel by the workers as unacceptable, but insisted the Government was still intent on discussing issues with workers to ensure no jobs were lost in the proposed Joint Venture with the Chinese company.
The Ports Minister has accused Hambantota District MP Namal Rajapaksa’s Nil Balakaya organisation as being behind the protests. Over 50 percent of the striking dock workers were members of Rajapaksa’s youth movement and had been used for election campaigning during the previous regime, Ranatunga charged.
In a press briefing on Monday (12), Ranatunga said that the SLPA was in the process of estimating property damaged at the Hambantota port by striking workers, which he said included damage to computer systems, plumbing, air-conditioners and CCTV systems. The damages would be claimed from workers, the Minister insisted.
In a post on his official Facebook page, Deputy Foreign Minister Dr Harsha De Silva called the protestors “pirates” who were being mobilised by disruptive political forces to block the free movement of maritime commerce in the island.
Speaking in Parliament on the issue, State Minister for Defence Ruwan Wijewardane also defended sending the Navy in to release the vessel, saying that the seizure of the ship by striking workers was an act of “piracy”.
Strongly denying allegations by the Joint Opposition that the Navy had shot at protesting workers, Wijewardane insisted that the Government would hand over control of the Harbour to the Sri Lanka Navy if the strike continued to disrupt the smooth functioning of the port.
“Once the workers seized the ship, they were no longer protesting civilians. They became pirates,” the State Minister for Defence told Parliament.
Courtesy:The Island