For the past 15 months, a sailor has been stranded onboard a ship in Norfolk due to a legal dispute.
What happened?
The 43 year old sailor, Captain Rastogi from India has been stranded aboard a ship moored in Norfolk for more than 15 months amid a legal dispute. The Indian-owned vessel ‘Malaviya Twenty’ has been detained in Great Yarmouth docks since it arrived in June 2016.
The ITF detained the ship at Great Yarmouth in November 2016 and secured 688,000 US dollars (£517,045) for the asset’s release to manning agents acting for the Indian Bank ICICI.
Issue over non-payment of dues
The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) reported that 33 crew members had been on and off the vessel since October 2015 and had not been paid their wages. The Captain has been staying on the vessel with three crew members over charges of dereliction which makes the vessel vulnerable to be claimed by others.
Facing hard times
The vessel’s owners have liquidated their assets and abandoned the ship in January, 2018 and all of his original crew members have returned to India. The Captain and the three crew member have not been paid their dues since last year.
ITF inspector Paul Keenan said, “Arresting the ship and selling it would raise enough money to pay everyone involved in the wrangle and repatriate the remaining four crew to India.
But he said Great Yarmouth port, which is owed unpaid dues, is “using legislation from the 19th Century” to demand three times the amount of rates. The money covered unpaid crew wages, with the last payment made in February 2017”.
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Source: BBC
