Bonus Extravagance at Port: An arrangement to pocket Tk 117 Crore

Chattogram Port has set an unprecedented event by presenting one record twice and giving two “incentive bonuses.” In 2025, celebrating a record in container handling, each person received an incentive bonus of Tk 100,000 once, based on the “calendar year” (January–December). Now, celebrating the same record, the Port Board has approved giving Tk 150,000 each, based on the “fiscal year” (July–June)!

The file is awaiting final approval at the Ministry of Shipping. If approved, it will also set a record for irregularities in Chattogram Port’s 138-year history.

Currently, the number of permanently employed officers and employees at the port is about four and a half thousand. About 200 officers and employees of the Ministry of Shipping are included in this. From the ministry’s secretary down to the peon, and including the port’s chairman to peon, each of 4,700 officers and employees was given Tk 100,000 from the port fund. Last March, more than Tk 47 crore was spent in this head.

Now, a proposal has again been made to give Tk 150,000 each in the same manner. This will cost the port Tk 70 crore. That is, in one year, nearly Tk 117 crore will be spent on incentive bonuses. If container handling records continue to be set every year in this way, will the port keep paying so much money every time without any rules and regulations? This has now emerged as a major question in the country’s port management.

It should be mentioned that in the last fiscal year, Chattogram Port earned a total of Tk 5,500 crore. After deducting operating expenses and various costs, net profit was Tk 3,142 crore.

In 2025, Chattogram Port set a record in container handling. Growth was 4 percent compared with the previous year. And in the 2025–26 (July–June) fiscal year, container handling grew by more than 6.5 percent. The calendar year runs from January to December. The fiscal year runs from July to June. Container handling is calculated on a monthly basis. Therefore, showing the same goods’ figures twice and taking two bonuses is a major irregularity.

At the same time, for three consecutive years, container handling at Chattogram Port has remained limited to between 4 and 5 percent. In the latest Lloyd’s List ranking of the world’s top 100 container seaports, Chattogram Port is now in 68th place, the same as the previous year. It has not moved up even one step in the ranking. In the year when there is such an elaborate arrangement to take two incentive bonuses, container handling at Chattogram Port was 3.257 million. Although growth did not increase year-on-year, the growth of incentive bonuses certainly did.

But the interesting thing is that in 2021, Chattogram Port achieved even double that, that is, 13.5 percent growth (3.2 million containers). At that time, no such incentive bonus was given to anyone. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former port chairman said, “Targets are set every year for cargo handling. When the target is met, everyone receives two or two-and-a-half additional bonuses. But there is no rule to spend public money in this way. How will the ministry’s peon get money? Have they gone mad?”

Is It an irregularity to give two incentive bonuses by showing the same record in two ways?—evading a direct answer, Chattogram Port spokesperson Syed Refayet Hamim said, “We haven’t received two yet. We have received one. The other is awaiting the Ministry’s approval. If the Ministry thinks so, it can give that too for six months.”

Ministry of Shipping Secretary Zakaria said, “If more profit is made, there is no problem in giving incentives; but it must be done on the basis of rules. We want to make a rule that all institutions under the ministry will follow. There will be no opportunity to take incentive bonuses as one pleases. For that reason, Chattogram Port’s proposal is under consideration.”

The Ministry of Shipping is the supervising and regulatory body of the Chattogram Port Authority. It holds important powers such as evaluating the port’s performance, policymaking, and approving budgets worth thousands of crores of taka. In such a context, if the port authority directly provides financial benefits to officials of its regulatory ministry, then in the future the ministry’s impartial supervisory power, accountability, and capacity for critical evaluation will be called into question. This is a direct conflict of interest.

Former Director General of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and former magistrate of Chattogram Port Munir Chowdhury said such an act is unreasonable and unethical. The ministry is the policymaking authority. The ministry will in no way receive the share due to the port’s employees. For such acts, they will inevitably face audit objections in the future. This money must be returned by the officials. It will also remain a bad precedent for government institutions.

When a container handling record is set, the port gives incentives or bonuses to workers directly involved in loading and unloading goods from ships at jetties, terminals, and the outer anchorage. These workers are recruited and paid by the port’s 45 private operators. The bonuses given to them come from the port’s welfare fund. In the contracts for hiring private operators, money for workers’ incentives is kept separately in the welfare fund. The entire amount is provided by the private operators. That expense is not met from the port’s own fund or treasury.

For the container handling growth in 2025, cheques of Tk 25,000 per person as their incentive started being distributed Tuesday. These port workers are being given incentives eight months after the record. Yet the port’s own officers and employees were given incentives six months earlier, in March. That is, port users are of the view that this incident reveals a tendency to deprive the private workers directly involved in cargo handling.

Chattogram Chamber President Amirul Haque expressed his surprise and said, “It is a share-out of Gauri Sen’s money. On one hand, the government says there is a financial crisis; on the other hand, there is this kind of hanky-panky. If one ministry gets an incentive bonus, why won’t officers and employees of the other ministries get it? And there is no incentive at all for the importers and exporters for whom this record was achieved.”