The onions cargo was taken directly to Singapore, instead of unloading the Malaysia-bound onion cargo at Penang port of Malaysia, which was the first calling port.
According to details made available to Business Recorder here on Tuesday, the vessel carrying over 120 open-door containers of onions left Karachi for Penang (in Malaysia) on November 17, 2005.
The due date of arrival of the said vessel at Malaysian Port was November 23, 2005. However, it could not book berth at the Malaysian port and, to save late charges for booking the berth, it directly sailed to Singapore port.
"Almost all the cargo has been spoiled as when the vessel arrived at Singapore, the window opened for ventilation was closed, for reasons better known to officials there", sources in government and onion export circle said.
They blamed the shipping company for incurring huge loss to the exporters as, only to save late charges at Malaysian port for booking the berth, the vessel went straight to Singapore and did not stop at Penang port of Malaysia, for which the onions cargo was booked.
The sufferings of onion exporters did not end with this one incident, as one onion exporter, Aslam Pakhali, said that another vessel of the same shipping company, carrying onions cargo for Malaysia, was reportedly heading directly towards Singapore, instead of its stopover port Penang, where this cargo is supposed to be unloaded.
When the shipping company's local agent was contacted, Aslam said, it came up with the same excuse of not being able to book berth at Malaysian port.
Aslam said that the cumulative losses of two shipments of onions due to wrong destination come to over Rs 40 million, which is beyond the affordability limits of the onion exporters due to their limited financial resources.
Officials in government circles confirmed the happening of the incident and incurring of huge losses by onion exporters.
Another onion exporter Chaudhry Younas told Business Recorder that officials of the said shipping company were unresponsive, whenever they were contacted about the onions cargo.
Younas said that information from Malaysia was also not encouraging, as the importers of the consignments are reluctant to lift the cargo due to its decaying condition and huge expenses of transporting the cargo from Singapore to Malaysia by road.
The most worrying matter for the exporters is remitting of foreign exchange, which they took from State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) for export of this cargo, he said, and appealed to the government to look into the matter for relaxation in paying back of the foreign exchange.
"A very lengthy and cumbersome process is involved to seek relief for paying back foreign exchange, which the onion exporters lost due to the fault of the shipping company", a government official remarked, while commenting on the issue.