Morshed Ali Khan Our honourable state minister for environment and forests claimed on Saturday that an "evil genie" is prowling the premises of our apex court and influencing the court's decisions in a bid to destroy the ship breaking industry.
That undoubtedly demands a look into what the "good genie" of the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) is doing to remedy the situation.
The "good genie" is breaking new grounds nowadays in the ship breaking yards of Sitakundu.
It is hell-bent to authorise scrapping of worn out and highly hazardous ocean going ships at the ship breaking yards. These ships, having exhausted their lifetimes, change hands in shady global markets of cash buyers, and then sent to the beaches of the Bay. At the yards each one is beached, stripped, and manually dismantled by hundreds of labourers in the most rudimentary outfits.
The "good genie" is least bothered about the safety of these workers or protection of our environment. Deaths and injuries of the workers in the ship breaking yards are invariably regular. News of accidents and consequent deaths or injuries hardly reach the outside world from the heavily secured yards unless there is a big blast. Within the last 11 years, according to the Department of Explosive, Green Peace and other watchdogs, 122 workers perished there in 71 accidents, and 39 workers sustained crippling injuries within the last 7 years. The figures do not include deaths from various diseases caused by highly toxic fumes and materials the poor workers are exposed to all the times. Yet the "good genie" of MoEF remains unmoved.
The ship breaking yards of Sitakundu resemble a battlefield where a devastated army of workers, in bare feet and hands, every day tries to salvage something out of gigantic masses of debris. At any time of the year the water of the Bay by the 100 ship breaking yards is littered with liquid and solid wastes.
The "good genie's" love for the defiant ship breakers could be traced back to its close connection with the industry. According to insiders, some of the "good genie's" family members are involved in the business that has traditionally kept their earnings secret from the public.
Following a High Court order in March 2009, a high powered technical committee was created by the "good genie's" office to formulate rules about ship breaking, and management of hazardous wastes. The court order clearly directed the authorities to include different ministries, experts, and three members of the civil society in the committee.
In one of the committee meetings on February 8 last year at MoEF, most members instantaneously opposed when a representative from the Directorate of Shipping proposed for inclusion of two members from the Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association (BSBA). The same meeting decided to include in the committee a representative from an organisation dealing with welfare of the workers.
But the "good genie" had its own idea. On March 10, another committee meeting was convened, but this time the members, who had opposed the inclusion of BSBA representatives, were not informed about it.
Instead, the committee invited two representatives from BSBA to that meeting and officially included them in the body. Inclusion of representatives for the workers' welfare was simply set aside. The "good genie" did not seem to realise that the polluters and offenders could greatly destroy the good intentions of the committee formed with a view to streamline the sector in line with proper labour management and environmental protection.
The most interesting part of the "good genie's" activities regarding streamlining the sector probably comes from its office's move to issue environment clearance certificates to 44 ship breaking yards on January 19 this year, a day after four young workers were killed in a huge blast in one of the yards. Only months before that, the "good genie's" office had issued similar certificates to 16 other yards. The certificates could only be issued if the ship breakers met all 56 conditions set by the Department of Environment itself. According to various organisations working in the field, none could meet the 56 conditions in such a short time, and without investing a good chunk of money.
Recently the "good genie's" office gave a go-ahead to scrapping of four ships on the basis of four highly dubious Pre-cleaning Certificates (PCC) issued on the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean .
Copies of the certificates obtained by The Daily Star show three different companies --- Joplin Overseas Investments Ltd, Duke Consulting Ltd, and Anisha Shipping Ltd --- issuing the PCCs. One of the certificates does not even have a stamp. The remaining three certificates bear the signature of the same person, although the corporate stamps are from three separate organisations. So we have a single person working for three different companies on the Virgin Islands signing three different PCCs for three different types of ships in eight days. According to our sources, pre-cleaning of a ship involves removing of all hazardous materials and substances. When a ship is pre-cleaned for scrapping, it becomes dysfunctional, therefore requires towing to its final destination --- the scrap yard. But all these four ships were beached with engines running.
The "good genie" has supporters abroad too. In a recent meeting at a posh London hotel, international cash buyers and brokers of scrap ships expressed how important it is to keep Bangladesh Bangladesh
EVIL GENIE:
Our "evil genie", on the other hand, resorted to law of the land at home -- not to courts anywhere in the UK , USA , or France
Source: The Daily Star, Dhaka . Monday, January 31, 2011
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