Muharram security: Transporters cry foul as police whisk away containers

Shipping companies deduct demurrage charges if containers go missing, complain transporters.

KARACHI: With the onset of Muharram, the Sindh police have started stocking containers to position them around the routes of processions for security. Goods transporters are, however, worried the police will cause trouble in returning them.

“Every year, the police pick up our trucks and containers for the security of processions and then we have to go through a lot of trouble for their release,” said Fazal Manan Jadoon of the United Goods Transporters Alliance, alleging that last year, the police had held over 170 containers from the start of Muharram till Chehlum and the transporters had to visit the police stations several times to secure their release.



The transporters have to bear the expenses of loading and unloading the containers from roads, he said, alleging that the police were taking bribes to release them.

He was of the view that these containers were owned by the shipping companies who deducted demurrage charges from their fares and security funds. Jadoon said that the police held their containers for weeks while the shipping companies kept deducting the demurrage charges until they received them back. “Even this Muharram, the police have confiscated 17 containers in advance which were released only after negotiations with the DIG,” he said, adding that they would offer their services for loading, transporting and unloading if the law enforcers sought permission from the shipping companies first.

Tahoor Afridi, a transporter whose container was reportedly seized for Youm-i-Ali processions, said the shipping company charged him Rs200,000 in demurrages.

“Luckily, the shipping company has not deducted the demurrage charges from my security but they have given me the bill for the two-month absence of the containers,” said Afridi.

The police, however, denied these reports. “We have spoken to the representatives of transporters to provide us the containers but they have not given them yet,” said an official of the South police. He said that they will have to pick up containers from trucks plying on roads as they were running out of time.

The police need 325 containers but they have a total of 100 containers, of which 50 are with the South police. Furthermore, the plan also requires 250 buses which the police have yet to obtain from bus operators. “We don’t have any funds to pay the transporters. If we had the funds, we would definitely pay them,” he said, adding that any transporter who faces problems of demurrages could contact them and carry their containers anytime.

“We have contacted the shipping companies over a hundred times to obtain the containers but they never answer,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th,2013.