A special media briefing jointly organised by Sri Lanka Ports Authority, South Asia Gateway Terminal, Colombo International Container Terminal and Ceylon Association of Shipping Agents, has informed that there has been a lot of negative publicity happening about the Port of Colombo. At the outset, Dr. Prasantha Jayamanna, Chairman, Sri Lanka Ports Authority said, the Port of Colombo is very resilient and is not at all impacted by what is happening outside its boundaries in the country. Precisely, whatever is happening inside the country has very limited effect on port related activities. We have come up with long standing mechanisms to prevent any negative impact on our operations. For example, if our workers are not able to come to work due to certain issue of transportation, there we have arranged buses for their commute. This is not a new initiative, we had started this service during the COVID-19 period. Our own transportation system offers pick-n-drop facility to employees working in all shifts. SAGT and CICT also have a similar mechanism. Whatever be the issues outside the port – be it issues with busses and transportation have had very limited effect on us. Similarly, we have created certain shift mechanisms wherein workers could stay for a longer period and complete their work, this reduces the unwanted time waste in transport and shift change.
The port of Colombo has a couple of fuel storage tanks that maintain adequate fuel for port related functions. Sometimes the same tanks also provide fuel to the workers’ vehicles. Similarly, for inter-terminal trucking and port-related machineries we have sufficient stocks in place to support our port’s normal functioning. In case of contingencies, wherein additional fuel is required for port operations, we have got necessary approvals for obtaining bunker license holders fuel which is stored in one of our own storage capacity called JCT Oil Bank.
As port of Colombo we have a very coherent and thoughtful plan, we are very resilient, our transhipment and release of local cargo is handling as per the procedures and KPIs. At the moment we don’t have any operational issue inside the port premises.
Mr. Romesh David, CEO, South Asia Gateway Terminals opined: In the past 8-10 weeks in tandem with economic and political issues that the country has faced, we have seen a significant increase in port related publicity which has picked up on certain incidents to portray operations of the port of Colombo in a very negative light. We did have some unfortunate incidents – in April there were issues with inter-terminal transfers, there were delays as the inter terminal transfers were not happening in time, but this was not due to fuel shortage, because fuel was issued by all three terminals for ITT purpose.
The second instance was on 9th or 10th of May when due to certain slip in information the port had halted operations for a day, but we have overcome it as the employees in all the three terminals, leadership in the ports, port unions have clearly understood that there is nothing to be gained by paralysing the operations of the port operations. Up to May 30, in terms of volumes, we are 2% above the volumes we had moved last year. In terms of ships, until April we were 5% above and in terms of the container ships that have called at the port, we are 2% above.
The port is a transhipment hub, and for 85% of the cargo that moves in this process, it has nothing to do with what’s happening in the port. At any point of time the port operations have been insulated from what’s happening in the country.
Mr. Jack Huang, CEO, CICT said, the three terminals have acted in a very responsible manner to ensure seamless movement of cargo at any time. The Port of Colombo is a strategic hub in this region and everybody shares a common responsibility to help this port grow better and better.
Ms. Shehara de Silva, Chairman, Executive Committee, Colombo Shipping Agents Association (CASA) shared, has 132 members and we represent all the shipping lines calling at the port of Colombo. All our principals are confident about the operations continuing at the port. We are thankful to SLPA and the two private terminals for continuously handling all the operations in this period while the country has faced difficulties in all other areas but the port has continued to work flawlessly and we as customers are extremely thankful for continuous operations, power supply being guaranteed and workers being present round the clock in all shifts. The negative media is being caused by various competing ports that are competing to divert the business of shipping lines calling at our port. But shipping lines have always preferred to use Colombo as a transshipment hub because there are so many facilities that Colombo offers to them as compared to other ports in the region. we are here to sustain the faith the shipping lines have in Port of Colombo and not let them in any doubts about continuation of services. If you see the export volumes we have facilitated 4% more than last year, imports are low because it’s the government policy to reduce imports and the transshipment volumes have remained the same as the last year.
