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A seminar, organised by the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) on privatisation of country's largest container terminal -- New Mooring Container Terminal (NMCT), was held in the port city Thursday amid unprecedented protests by hundreds of employees and general workers.
The protest programme by the workers halted the normal activities of the port for at least five hours.
"Our usual work at the port was hampered to a great extent in the morning hours as the workers mainly from mechanical department attended the protest pro gramme", said a high official of the CPA.
Around 7000 port workers and general employees formed a human chain from Chittagong Customs House to the port training institute in protest against the move on privatisation of the NMCT, the construction of which is nearing completion.
They chanted slogans calling for immediate scrapping of the move for privatising the terminal. The protesters organised dozens of rallies during the seminar hours.
Mayor of Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) Alhaj ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury at one of such rallies, organised by Bandar Rakkha Committee (BRC), said that he would resist the move for privatisation of the NMCT at any cost.
He warned that he would begin tougher programmes against the government move unless the authorities refrained from making the NMCT into a private entity.
President of the BRC Mahfuzur Rahman, front ranking leaders of the BRC Abu Jafar Azad, Wahidullah Sarkar, Shahidul Islam, Joinal Abedin and others spoke at the rally.
Later, Mayor of the CCC joined the seminar where he was invited as a guest and he also voiced similar concern at the seminar, sources said.
The CPA organised a seminar on the mode of operation of the NMCT at the CPA training institute Thursday in the wake of protests over the move for privatising the terminal by different trade bodies in the CPA.
There are currently three different alliances that are protesting the process of handing over the operation and managements of the NMCT to private hands.
The CPA called an international tender for privatising its management and equipment operation on January 30 and the last date of submission of the tender was April 30.
The CPA undertook the project of constructing the country's largest container terminal at New Mooring area at a cost of Tk 4.340 billion in February 2003. The project is likely to complete in September 2006.
Protests sparked at the port areas soon after the advertisement was made in the public. They are organising protest rallies and other forms of agitation as part of their ongoing movement against the move.
However, shipping minister Akbar Hossain, CPA chairman AMM Shahadat Hossain and other port high joined the seminar.
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