THIS is in response to the letter ‘Pakistani seafarers’ (March 28) by Capt Asif N. Siddiqui. Pakistani seafarers are playing an important role in bringing foreign exchange while serving with international shipping companies.

I have been serving as a seafarer for the last 35 years. I have served with several international companies. They all appreciated the skills of Pakistani seafarers but the issue nowadays is the visa for joining and leaving the ship.

Shipowners are having problems during the change of staff and at times have to pay additional money for signing on/off Pakistani seafarers. Owing to this, they are reluctant to hire Pakistani staff.

I joined a ship in January in Indonesia, but the agent refused to send visa invitation, saying Indonesian authorities did not allow Pakistani seafarers to join and leave the ship.

Then my company paid an extra amount to the agent at the Chinese port of Taicang for taking special permission from the authorities for a visa.

Once I signed off at Poland where my company had to pay additional fare to fly me direct from Poland to Karachi via the UAE. As I was not having a Schengen visa, they could not route me through European airports where the fare was cheap.

Now even countries like Tanzania do not issue visas to Pakistani seafarers. It feels bad when we are called to be questioned about the visa.

They say the Tanzanian government needs one month for issuing a visa to Pakistani nationals. Singapore immigration also does not allow us to land. For going ashore they call for an interview.

Once in Mumbai my fourth engineer fell down and suffered severe back injury. A doctor came on board and gave him a heavy dose of painkillers but he was not allowed to be hospitalised or to sign off.

The fourth engineer had to sail till next port and from there he signed off and was sent home for treatment.

In such conditions Pakistani seafarers will lose their jobs as no shipowner will hire Pakistanis. The government is requested to look into this matter.

Capt Waseem Ahmad

Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2016