KARACHI, Nov 10: Pakistan has no safeguards against damages caused by marine oil pollution to its coastline and economic zone spreading up to 200 km in the sea.

Compensation for oil pollution damages caused by oil spills are governed by an elaborate international regime. The original framework of the regime was based on 1969 International Convention on Civil Liability for oil pollution damage (CLC-69).

However, the old regime was amended in 1992 by two protocols i.e. CLC-92 and Fund 92. But Pakistan never ratified these protocols and remained exposed to risks of damage caused by marine oil pollution to coastline and economic zone, shipping experts said.

The catastrophic oil spill caused by MT Tasman Spirit on July 27, 2003, after it went aground inside the approach channel and broke into two pieces spilling 30,000 tons crude oil in the harbour largely affected Clifton and Sea View beach. It caused severe damage to the health of marine life and people living on the coastline.

There are several such incidents of marine oil pollution, which polluted sea and coastline of the country and even became hazardous for people living around. However, no government or concerned ministry took pain for ratification of the conventions.

According to ports and shipping experts there was an incident of abandoning a damaged vessel in the year 1998, which caused major oil spill on the Balochistan coast.

An unknown oil tanker in 1996 pumped oil in the jurisdiction of Port Qasim, which caused major ecological damage to mangroves and also chocked cooling system of KESC power generation plant situated nearby. A vessel, MT Golden Gate, in 2002 hit and sank a trawler in the Karachi Port area spilling 1,300 tons of oil.

However, the perpetrators of these criminal acts, which caused severe damages, were not apprehended and no compensation could be claimed.

After experiencing horrendous pollution damages caused by Tasman Spirit to marine life and people living near the coastline in 2003, the then director general Ports and Shipping took the pain to submit accession document for CLC-92 under which compensation against marine oil pollution is payable without any contribution.

For the Fund-92, however, Pakistan has yet to become its signatory and in case of any such incident no compensation would be paid for the damages caused by oil pollution. To benefit from Fund-92 contribution is payable to International Tanker Operators Fund managed by IOPC.

The contribution to Fund-92 is nominal when compared with the benefits and compensations made on account of damages caused by marine oil pollution.

Captain Anwar Shah, the former DG Ports and Shipping, said that the contributions to Fund-92 are paid by oil importing entities of the signatory states. He further said that under CLC-92, 326 SDR (IMF special drawing rights) are given in case of oil pollution and under Fund-92 135,000,000 SDR (including ship owner’s share) are given in compensation.

He urged the concerned authorities to immediately adopt CLC-92 by taking the document and become its signatory so that in case of any incident the country could get proper compensation against damages caused by marine oil pollution.