Pakistan is blessed with three commercial ports - Karachi, Port Qasim and Gwadar. However there exists no national port plan or even national port authority to oversee the development of these ports. All the three ports are autonomous in nature and efforts to streamline have been blocked by the vested interests.
These ports make their own development plans at times duplicating/complimenting each other. The last decade has seen technological improvements making imperative to plan the transportation system of the developing country as a whole, in order to achieve a balance between the capacities of the various ports.
In maritime transport it is some time possible - particularly for bulk and unitised cargo movements - to include the shipping, port and inland transport facilities in one co-ordinated plan. In other cases the ship traffic is not under the control of planners and it is only possible to co-ordinate the port facilities with those of inland transport and distribution.
Planning a seaport without considering the connecting road, rail and barge facilities may lead to serious fault in national communication. This is particularly true in case of developing countries in many of which the freight traffic is rapidly growing and changing.
Port of Gwadar is a classic case of faulty planning as port was completed, whilst there exists no hinterland connectivity except coastal highway to Karachi, which too gets awashed with torrents and the passage of boze pass restricts trucks to carry heavy load and climbing due to difficult terrains.
The port has been further dredged to 14 m depth but civil structure can accommodate vessels of max 50,000 DWT, not panamax vessels, another design fault.
Due to the ignorance of planners Tugs/Pilot boats were ordered which are under power and not appropriate for tugging purposes as the design capacity of tug at max efficiency is 30 tons bollard pull and pilot boat is under power so is the cargo handling equipment.
According to international IMO guidelines the port needs two 60 tons bollard pull tugs to swing the vessel in the designed turning basin of the port within 1.50 times of the length of the vessel.
I have learnt from market sources that a panamax vessel is said to be due at Gwadar with 72000 tons cargo, thus I find it prudent to create awareness that the designed capacity is only 50,000 tons DWT, not 75000 tons DWT. Moreover the present tugs will not be able to handle a panamax. The searching question is that are we going for adventure or we are prepared for the consequences, this could be anybody's guess.
Within the port sector a balance plan is needed for each class of maritime traffic. The number of ports, their specialisation and their locations have to be considered.
We in Pakistan still permit competition between our ports, but this is no longer seen as acceptable norm where national resources are limited. The trend towards handling bulk commodities is specialised high, through puts terminals, where national traffic flow of a particular product may be handled at one terminal, irrespective of geographical requirements.
If these terminals mushroom up in each port, they may remain under utilised and will not allow the country to take advantage of economy of scale, obtainable through usage of large bulk carriers.
The specialised terminals can load/unload 10,000 tons per hour and freight for large bulk carriers are also low. Needless to mention that for all classes of freight, there is growing need to avoid over investment. Due to non-existent of national port plan, Karachi and Port Qasim both are offering bulk cargo terminals on BOT basis to entrepreneurs, a duplication which can lead to overinvestment and under utilisation as is the case of building new OP II whilst all white oil imports were shifted to Port Qasim due to Pepco line.
Thus Karachi port handling liquid cargo capacity of about 5 millions tons have been shifted which is ultimate under utilisation, due to non connectivity to Pepco line from Karachi Port. KPT is competing with PQA to establish LPG and LNG terminals. The present installed capacity of oil terminals at Karachi and Port Qasim is about 33 mill tons, but only 18 mill tons is handled, thus underutilisation of capacity and if SBMS are allowed, then both ports will suffer further capacity loss.
All the three ports in Pakistan submit their new projects to the newly formed Ministry of Ports and Shipping which is devoid of any port planners and projects are examined by the generalists having no track of maritime business. The amount of work involved in a country with several ports justifies the maintenance of a small permanent nucleus of professional planners, to be augmented by an additional professional team, when a full revision of national plan is needed.
National port planning leads to several policy decisions to define the role of each port and usage of national resources in most economical manner.
A further requirement would be which ports or the port infrastructure will be paid by Federal Government and which by individual port. It is strongly recommended that a national port authority be made to oversee the functioning of the ports.
These recommendations fully or partly have been in practice even in our neighbouring country, thus there is strong case for setting up a specialist government agency with the overall responsibility for coordinating port policies at national level.
To build up and maintain the capability needed, and to allow a free interchange of ideas with the many interests involved, it may be more appropriate for the agency to be separated from the central government ministry concerned and to take the form of a national ports authority with defined statutory powers, such as those listed below.
There is a close parallel to the move in a number of countries towards national airport authorities, national oil authorities and so on. A small permanent secretariat would be appropriate.
For efficient management of port activity, the operational decisions should be taken locally; it would normally be wrong to give a national ports authority any operational responsibilities. Its main function should be one of co-ordination and regulation, the principal aim being to prevent the undesirable duplication of investments.
THE STATUTORY POWERS WHICH IT MAY BE APPROPRIATE TO GIVE A NATIONAL PORTS AUTHORITY ARE AS FOLLOWS:
a) Investment: Power to approve proposals for port investments in amounts above a certain figure, for example, $5 million.
The criterion for approval would be that the proposal was broadly in accordance with a national ports plan, which the authority would maintain.
b) Financial policy: power to set common financial objectives for ports (for example, required return on investment defined on a common basis) with a common policy on what infrastructure will be funded centrally and what locally; advising the government on loan applications.
c) Tariff policy: power to set a common tariff structure (local conditions will determine to what extent the authority should also regulate tariff levels.)
d) Labour policy: power to set up common recruitment standards, a common wage structure and common qualifications for promotion; power to approve common labour union procedures.
e) Licensing: where appropriate, power to establish principles for the licensing of port employers, agents, etc.
f) Information and research: power to collect, collate, analyse and disseminate statistical information on port activity for general use, and to sponsor research into port matters as required.
g) Legal: power to act as legal adviser to port authorities.
It would be advisable for such an authority to set up a method of obtaining advice from persons with wide experience in the matters of harbours, shipping and inland transport, in industrial, commercial, financial and economic matters, in applied science and in the organisation of labour.
An appropriate method would be to co-opt such persons on to the Board of the authority or on to its subsidiary committees. Liaison would also take place, with national bodies representing shippers, ship-owners etc.
The risk involved in giving such an authority powers over port investments and tariff policy is that additional delays may occur.
It would be essential, therefore, to institute in addition an emergency procedure to speed up or even bypass the normal decision process when, for example, there were sudden changes in traffic or rapid increases in congestion.
The only fear which creeps in mind, when suggesting pragmatic ideas is the appointment of right people at right places and strict adherence to laid down qualifications of commercial port management.
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