Toxic ship being scrapped despite ban and case in High Court
22nd October 2008
The toxic ship blacklisted by Green Peace, the global environment watchdog, is being broken up for scrap metal on the Sitakundu coast before the end of the legal battleand in complete disregard of the danger to the health and lives of the breakers and local people and of the protests by the local environmental forums, said concerned sources.(The New Age BD)
The government had earlier banned the New Atlantia after a Bangladeshi ship-breaking company, Madina Enterprise, imported it under the false name of MT Enterprise from Singapore.
The New Atlantia was described by Green Peace as ‘hazardous’ in its global list of toxic ships.
The owner of the Madina Enterprise, Nazim Uddin, said that the ship has already been beached and is being broken up at his yard on the coast of Sitakundu.
‘About 50 per cent of the ship has been scrapped since we beached it after securing permission from the court,’ he said.
‘Initially the government gave us permission, but later the ship was banned. When we appealed to the High Court, we again got permission for beaching and scrapping the ship. The court gave us the clearance after the Department of Shipping surveyed the vessel and submitted a report in our favour, saying that it does not contain any hazardous substances,’ he added.
The chairman of the Bangladesh Environment Lawyers Association, Rizwan Hasan, blamed the importer of the ship for scrapping the toxic ship in defiance of the stay order issued by the court to stop him from beaching it.
‘We were astonished at how this ship was beached and scrapped while the legal battle was still going on and the ban was still in force,’ he said. ‘We filed another case on charge of contempt of court and also placed a petition seeking an order to stop the toxic ship from being broken. The hearing of this case will be held on Wednesday.’
Khairul Bashar, inspector of the government’s explosive department, said that the ship was not given clearance for being scrapped by his office.
‘We were requested by the importer to inspect the ship, but we did not do so as a legal battle is still going on,’ he said. ‘We did not know that the ship was being scrapped. Now we will look into this matter.’
Mohammad Shahin, an official of the environmental forum Young Power in Social Action, said, ‘We were surprised at such an unprecedented incident of a toxic ship, blacklisted by the Green Peace, being broken up in our country when other countries had refused to let it beach.’
‘This is contempt of court as the previous permission was stayed. How the port and customs authorities here allowed the beaching of such a controversial ship is also a big question,’ he added.
‘Earlier, some other toxic ships imported by Bangladeshi ship-breakers were forced to leave our territory after our protests,’ he added.
The director-general of the shipping department, Captain Shafiullah, said, ‘We surveyed the ship following a court order, but found no hazardous substances in it. Accordingly, we submitted a report to the court and it gave the company permission to beach the vessel. So we have nothing to do now though earlier we banned the ship after finding it in Green Peace’s list of toxic vessels.’
‘We also wrote to Green Peace to know on what grounds it had blacklisted the ship, but so far we haven’t got any reply,’ he added. ‘I think that Green Peace is doing monkey business here.’
Up to 130 large ships are scrapped each year on beaches of Sitakundu, home to the world’s largest ship breaking yards. It is only 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Chittagong city.
Sitakundu’s ship-breaking yards have enjoyed a boom in recent years due to the soaring demand for metal.
Source: News of Bangladesh