Sacked British sailors refuse to leave ship

Stories by Dele Aderibigbe, Lagos

A cargo ship

Up to 20 maritime workers will have to be physically removed from a customs ship in Darwin after being sacked and replaced by cheaper foreign workers, a union official says.

The highly qualified crew of the Triton were told last month that their contracts would not be renewed when it left Darwin port after maintenance work next week. The British company which owns the ship, Gardline International, has a contract with the federal government to patrol northern Australian waters for illegal fishing.

“That’s the irony of it - here they are in border security and they’re sacking an Australian crew and bringing in foreign workers,” Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) national secretary Paddy Crumlin said. Just 12 months ago the workers signed a collective agreement with Gardline and had no problems until they received a letter from the company last month, sacking them all.

The crew is determined to fight the decision. “These are tenacious professional seafarers - they’re not too worried about the confrontation that’s required in border security so they’re not going to be too worried about a company that’s sacking them and bringing in foreign nationals,” Mr Crumlin said. “They’re going to exercise their civil rights and I’d say they’re going to have to be physically removed.” Federal Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said the company’s action was out of line.

“Gardline is behaving with a short-term perspective for a company that wants to go on doing business with the Australian government,” the minister said. “Whatever the legality of Gardline’s present action, it’s just not possible that the present government can look favourably on the kinds of tactics that they have adopted.”

Mr Debus has referred the matter to the Workplace Ombudsman and will review the contracts involved. “It’s obvious enough that into the future we don’t want this kind of difficulty and trouble surrounding contracts of such importance to our national security.” The present contract lasts until mid-2009.

Mr Debus also has had brief discussions with Gardline and is hopeful it will soon resolve the situation. Nine crew members were refusing to leave the vessel on Monday morning and the 11 other affected workers were endeavouring to get aboard to join the protest. Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says the prime minister must resolve the maritime standoff in Darwin “fairly quickly” if he is serious about border security.
Dr Nelson blamed unions for delaying important work in the region.

“I noticed union banners and people speaking on behalf of unions holding up the ship,” the opposition leader told reporters in Sydney. “If the government is fair dinkum about ... protecting Australia’s borders from unlawful fishing, or people coming here through the back door, you’d expect they would resolve this fairly quickly.

‘ICD will enable Nigeria meet littoral responsibilities’

Stories by Dele Aderibigbe, Lagos

The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) Captain Adamu Biu has observed that the establishment of an Inland Container Depot( ICD) in Maiduguri would enable Nigeria meet its responsibility as a littoral state.

Captain Biu made his observation in Maiduguri at the weekend, during a one-day Shippers’ Sensitization programme on ICDs as catalyst for enhancing hinterland economic development, which held at the Maiduguri International Hotel, highlighting that the ICD could be operational by the year 2010.

He said,“Nigeria as a littoral state has responsibility under the U.N. sponsored Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) to facilitate transit of goods to land-locked neigh-bouring countries. “The state provides a unique transport corridor by bordering three land-locked countries of Chad, Niger Republic and Northern Cameroon” highlighted Biu, stressing the strategic importance and economic potentials of Borno State.

He stated that the Maiduguri site was the sixth of the ICDs and Container Freight Stations CFS in the country, adding that the others were located at Ibadan, Funtua, Kano, Jos and Isi-Alangwa as recently gazetted by the Federal Government. The NSC boss noted that the recent discovery of oil in the Chad Basin was an added impetus for both the governments and people of Borno and Yobe states to partner together, taking advantage of the Maiduguri Container Freight Station for efficient delivery of goods, noting that since trade flowed across Borno to Bangui in Central Africa, the probability would always be high that traders visiting Borno would come from as far as the the Sudan, relying on Maiduguri as a first port of call.

Biu disclosed that a lot has been done by way of opening up access for effective communication between those of the nation’s business class and relevant groups overseas. “We have done a lot to provide our people with access to desired infor-mation .And you know what information is today.

“If you don’t have information about what is happening, or what is required of you, you know that could be costly to you or your business target. And that is why we have tried to do that. The captain said government has also tried to organise as many seminars and symposia for the general public especially, for those, whose general interest we are supposed to protect; the slippers, and stakeholders involved in import and export. And it is an on-going thing.

Initially, he said, the government’s concepts of the ICDs were not what it is today. The ICDs were to be built by government, and then given to the people to operate. “When you have that kind of vision or project, you need a large team of people to put their heads together, to come up with a blue print, which would be truly realistic. But somewhere along the line, the view of the admini-stration on it changed. The later decision is to have ICDs built by those who want to operate.

Subsequently, the implementation committee was drastically reduced. So, for now, we only have a