The businessmen are importing scrap ships for their yards by fulfilling the terms and conditions mentioned under the clearance certificates in those yards.
They said this at a press conference at the Chittagong Press Club vernacular to clarify their position and protest a report published in a national daily.
President of Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association Hefazatur Rahman told the media that the government has formed a high powered committee comprising representatives from the Environment Directorate, Marine Academy , Directorate of Shipping and a teacher of the chemistry department of Chittagong University
"So the report published in the daily is fully fabricated, baseless and ungrounded as the high powered committee is endowed authority to see the issues of environmental hazards created by ship dismantling and to protect the shipbreaking as an industry," he said.
He said the committee members issue every release order through proper case-to-case investigation of the scrap ships at the outer anchorage of Chittagong Port
Former BSBA president Jafar Alam has said that the government earns Tk 10 billion as revenue annually from the shipbreaking industry. Besides, 20, 000 small, medium and large scale industries are being provided raw materials from the shipbreaking industry.
"In the last 10 months the national economy has been deprived of a large amount of money as we could not dismantle ships. A non-government organization (NGO) in the name of protecting environment is simply protecting the interest of other countries to destroy the potential shipbreaking industry," he said.
Technical adviser of the association Captain Salauddin Ahmed Selu among others were present at the press conference.
Source: The Financial Express. 20 April 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment