KARACHI: Port Qasim Authority (PQA) management’s incompetency caused many PQA crafts to lie off nonoperational. Last month a newly acquired pilot boat (Heer) propeller had lost in sea boat was declared non-operational and added to junkyard of crafts already declared Non-operational for a long time.

Such faults and incidents are common in this port where in last 10 years out of four acquired pilot boats three of boats (Lahoot, Amber and Heer) generated similar faults in propulsion systems and rendered non-operational for a long period of times. Pilot Boat Amber is Non-operational for last 2 years, this boat is under private manning and operation of Bahria Foundation. Hefty amounts on its manning and operation had been paid while craft remain on jetty.  According to details PQA Crafts Tug Mohna and Pilot Boat Amber which was newly acquired in 2018 had been outsourced to Bahria Foundation in January 2019 for manning, operation and 1st Line Maintenance due to a shortage of engineers, Inland masters and support staff at hefty and huge amount of Rs 400 million for 2 years and again same contract was awarded to Bahria Foundation in Rs 405 million for 2 years while craft Amber remained non-operational till now.

Similarly, other PQA Crafts which include Tug Sachal, Pilot Boats Karli, Kenjhar and surveillance crafts Makli, Sohni had been outsourced to PNSC for manning, operation and 1st Line Maintenance again on hefty amounts. But persons appointed by PNSC on these crafts were far below qualification required as per PQA tender. Most of these outsourced crafts were either non-operational or cannot be used in shipping operations due to poor seaworthiness. Newly acquired 4 ASD tugs manning and operations have been outsourced to same manufacturer Turkish yard Sanmar for Rs 949 million and dredger Indus Dolphin has been run by Chinese since its induction in PQA. Both of these contracts were paid in hefty foreign currency, at a time when country is begging for dollars in front of IMF and other monetary funds. No person has been inducted or trained to run these advanced crafts and neither PQA has sufficient staff to at least have strict oversight on these outsourced crafts resulting in poor maintenance issues and accidents.

Port Qasim Authority Operation Maintenance department is deliberately being run with a shortage of engineers and understrength. Hefty amounts on outsourcing manning and operation tenders (some even paid in foreign currency) for Tugs, Pilot Boats and Dredger, which is making no benefits as many crafts were lying non-operational. Department has been run by blue-eyed personnel on an acting and additional charge basis and due to lack of perks and privileges for marine engineers as compared to KPT, Director Ops Maintenance (Bps-20), Chief Engineer (Bps-19), and Marine Engineer (Bps-18) sanctioned seats were laying vacant. 

Repeated recruitment advertisements made and tests had been carried out but required seats could not be fulfilled as even sanctioned seat appointments are now made on an ad hoc contract basis which itself is grave violation of PQA service rules and recent High Court/Supreme Court judgment. 

On many important posts single persons were holding an additional charge and retired people were called back instead of appointing fresh and qualified personnel. Interestingly post of Director OPS and Maintenance is vacant for last 5 years despite several job advertisements, this particular post has never been advertised just to cherish a blue-eyed person.

Published in The Daily National Courier, October, 12 2022

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