5,463 tonnes of imported Russian wheat found short

More than 5,000 tonnes of wheat worth around Tk16.44 crore imported from Russia under government to government (G2G) agreement has gone missing.

According to sources, the Directorate General of Food imported 291,200 tonnes of wheat in October-November this year in six shipments. However, after unloading the wheat in the outer anchorage of Chattogram port, Chattogram Silo and Mongla port they received only 285,737 tonnes.

The incident has created tension among the Russian supplier JSC FEC, their agent National Electric BD, shipping agent Seven Seas Shipping Lines and the food directorate as nobody is taking responsibility for the missing wheat and are blaming each other for violating the contract.

On 5 December, Alexander Mantrytskiy, ambassador of the Russian Embassy in Bangladesh, sent a letter to Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder in this regard.

In the letter, the Russian ambassador accused the shipping agent Seven Seas Shipping of violating the contract.

"The shipping agent Seven Seas Shipping Ltd Bangladesh appointed by Prodintorg is refusing to perform its contractual duties. For the last four days, the necessary vessel and port clearance have been put on hold, which resulted in an unexpected delay in shipment and subsequently huge financial loss for the Russian supplier," the letter reads.

The letter requested the food minister to take necessary measures to compel the Seven Seas Shipping limited Bangladesh to fulfill its obligations and ensure successful delivery of the Russian wheat to the Bangladesh market.

Earlier, in 2017, more than 3,000 tonnes of wheat imported from Russia worth Tk7.4 crore went missing from Chattogram port. Seven Seas Shipping was the shipping agent for that as well.

However, the shipping agent's officials have blamed the Russian supplier, their Bangladeshi agent and the officials of the food directorate for the missing wheat.

Md Ali Akbar, CEO of Seven Seas Shipping, told The Business Standard, "They have resorted to fraud during the unloading of goods. The product was unloaded without a proper draft survey. They are blaming us for the incident and are not paying the bills."

The company sent a letter to the Directorate General of Food on 12 December on the issue. The letter said, "They are delaying our payments, giving us one after another false commitment and sending fake bank advice and thus deceiving us. Now instead of remitting funds against our dues, they are trying to bypass it creating pressure on us by misguiding the government's high officials showing their fabricated documents."

According to the letter, one of the six ships MV Akij Moon reached the outer anchorage of Chattogram port on 7 October as per the G2G agreement. The wheat was unloaded at the outer anchorage, Chattogram Silo Jetty and the Mongla Port. The ship was supposed to have 54,050 tonnes of wheat, but only 53,211 tonnes were unloaded.

The ship MV Panormitis arrived at the port on 11 October and 41,123 tonnes of wheat was unloaded from it instead of 42,000 tonnes mentioned in the contract. Another ship MV Veslets arrived on 13 October and 34,571 tonnes of wheat was unloaded from it instead of 35,250 tonnes, the letter mentioned.

As per the letter, wheat unloaded from the other ships also appeared to be lower than the amount mentioned in the contract.

Among the six ships carrying wheat, MV Akij Moon and MV Akij Glob are two Bangladeshi flag bearers and are owned by Akij Group. Mizanur Rahman, assistant general manager, Akij Shipping, a sister concern of Akij Group said, "These two ships of ours were hired by a company named Agraocrop. We have nothing to with the missing wheat incident."

Meanwhile, on 14 December, a tripartite meeting was held at the Directorate General of Food. The meeting ended with four decisions including that the National Electric BD, the local representative of the Russian supplier, and Seven Seas Shipping will not file any further complaint against each other, and the bills of the shipping agent will be paid.

Amiruzzaman Sohail, managing director of National Electric BD, was contacted more than once but could not be reached for comment.

Chattogram Silo Super Fayez Ullah Khan Shibli said, "The importer or supplier could not show shore scale loading of the ships' loading point. The reason behind the missing wheat is the error of the supplier. No wheat disappeared from the silo."

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, director-general of the food directorate, did not respond when contacted via phone for his view on the incident.