Privatise certification of marine vessels, suggest experts

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FE Report
The government should privatise the certification and monitoring system to ensure the safety of the riverine transportation, experts opined Wednesday.
"No magistrate attended there to monitor the loading of excess passengers," Atiqul Islam Chowdhury, national coordinator of Nirapod Naupath Bastobayon Jote (NNBJ) said.
He was presenting his keynote paper at a press conference jointly organised by NNBJ and COAST Trust on 'the reason and prevention of the launch tragedy of Nazirpur at Bhola'.
The government should form vigilance teams led by magistrates for ensuring the rights of the passengers, he said claiming that mismanagement of the government is responsible for COCO-4 tragedy.
He also said that the government should reform and make more active the riverine transportation ordinance of 1976 and ensure insurance of the passengers keeping record of passengers' names and mobile haul numbers.
The speakers said that a syndicate has been grown in launch business through owning, sheltering and promoting by the leaders of the marine sector. They never think for the earning limitation of the poor or do they think of the interest of ordinary people.
The government has planned between 2005-2007 to purchased a capable crane but yet it has not been purchased, they added.
The accident of MV COCO-4 occurred late on November 27 that caused the death of a total of 83 passengers so far.
Salvage vessel MV Hamza and MV Rostom are trying together to roll over the launch. But the operational capacity of these two vessels is too low to do so.
"None of the concerned government officials were at Sadarghat, Dhaka to observe or monitor the situation," Zakir Hossain, one of the survivors said.
Rabeya Akhtar Ankhi, another survivor also blamed the weak monitoring system of the government and non-professional attitudes of the staff for the accident.
COAST Trust Executive Director Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, Deputy Director Sanak Kumar Bhowmik, Chief of Rescue Team for COCO-4 accident Shahabuddin, among others, were present at the conference.