Desperate Sri Lankan crew from an attached ship in Durban Harbour have been arrested after they tried to raise R800 “pocket money” by selling metal from the ship for scrap.
The 13 men arrested with the metal at the weekend are part of the 26-member crew of the Lanka Mahapola, who say they are owed $85 000 (R708 900) in wages.
The Lanka Mahapola was detained
after the Durban High Court granted an order for a maritime lien – the attachment of a ship as property in lieu of a debt.
The ship has been in the harbour
since May 17. The crew, which claimed to have been at sea for 20 days without electricity to power the ship’s lights, enlisted the help of the International Transport Workers’ Federation.
The arrested crew are expected to appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court this week.
Their South African maritime lawyer Struan Mundell, who is also acting on behalf of the federation, said on Monday that he would argue for the charges to be withdrawn or, failing that, for the men to be granted bail.
Mundell said it was common practice for a crew to sell the metal scraps off a ship for pocket money, once it had off-loaded its cargo.
He said he had spoken to some of the arrested men and they claimed that they had received the captain’s permission to sell the scrap, which they had sold for R800.
“The captain is now, however, claiming he did not grant permission,” Mundell said.
“It is believed he is doing this to spite the crew because of this wage dispute.”
Mundell said the crew had complained to him that it had been an ordeal, including the ship having drifted at sea while they were trying to repair an engine.
He said he had spoken to the ship’s engineer who apparently showed him a request that was sent to the owners in August 2011 for engine parts that they were still waiting for.
Crew members had also said they had to use salt water to wash their clothes.
The local representative of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, Sprite Zungu, has been working with the crew to resolve the dispute.
Zungu said he had asked for the arrest order, demanding $85 000 – the total of the crew’s salary for two to three months – from the ship’s owner. Should the dispute not be resolved soon, they would also be claiming their salary for the month of May, he said.
Zungu said the crew made several complaints to him.
“They have been at sea for between six and 16 months and they have gone for 20 days and nights without electricity, which is dangerous. Other ships aren’t able to see the ship at night. If there are no generators, there’s no life.
“They were forced to go to sleep when they didn’t have running water and so couldn’t use the toilets.
“The ship was running short on diesel and the crew said they used wood to cook outside.”
Zungu has been on board the ship since it was detained and described it as “dirty”.
“They are desperate to go home. They have used my cellphone to call their families back home who are dependent on this salary,” he said. “They’ve even asked if I could pay them out of my own pocket.”
The crew, who have been living on the ship while it is being detained in Durban, contacted the federation before the ship docked at the port.
A Sri Lankan newspaper, The Sunday Times, had reported that the vessel was owned by Ceylon Shipping Corporation, based in Sri Lanka, and had been leased out to a private company, Triple S Shipping, which was responsible for the crew and the cargo on board.
The Daily News contacted Triple S Shipping in Durban but its director Ranjen Sankar, denied knowledge of the vessel and said his company had not leased it from Ceylon Shipping.
The paper also claimed that the vessel’s captain had been involved in a heated stand-off with crew late last year, over the same issue, at a port in Sudan and subsequently the bulk of the crew signed off once they had received their dues.
The ship’s agent, Durban-based Seaclad Maritime, distanced itself from the wage dispute, saying it was only responsible for the loading and off-loading of the cargo.
Zungu said he was still trying to establish for himself who the ship’s owners are.
Police spokesman Captain Thulani Zwane, confirmed that 13 men between the ages of 23 and 47 were arrested for allegedly stealing property from the ship. - Daily News