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8 states agree to step up Indian Ocean surveillance
2006-09-05 08:21:42
By Judica Tarimo, Bagamoyo
Countries that border the Indian Ocean reaffirmed their commitment to stepping up surveillance to crackdown on un-seaworthy ships.
Eight countries that met in Dar es Salaam yesterday were told that un-seaworthy vessels are increasingly becoming a serious threat to sea transport and put at risk the lives of people, their property and the marine environment.
Government officials from the eight countries - Iran, India, Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Sudan and Tanzania - resolved to step up surveillance in the Indian Ocean for security reasons.
’’Substandard shipping is sheer disgrace to the whole maritime industry,’’ said the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Development, Dr Makongoro Mahanga, when he opened the Ninth Indian Ocean Memorandum of Understanding (IOMOU) on Port State Control in Bagamoyo, Coast Region.
’’Let’s strive to put in place control measures to make our region and the world at large too small for operation of substandard ships. In fact, they are bound to vanish,’’ said Mahanga.
The deputy minister appealed to ports and related authorities from IOMOU-member countries to chart long-term mechanisms to detect and subsequently clamp down on un-seaworthy ships.
The quality of ships on the India Ocean needs to be subjected to extensive and frequent inspection by the authorities in a move to protect the lives of people, cargo and pollution of marine resources, Mahanga said.
The minister told the authorities to be serious and ensure that the ships adhered to international standards as provided for in the international maritime regulations.
’’The ultimate aim is to stop operations of sub substandard ships,’’ he observed.
He conceded that operation of un-seaworthy ships was not an exclusive regional problem, but a global one.
So, maritime organisations from outside the IOMOU regime should be given an opportunity to join such forums to enable them exchange views and experiences on how to control the problem, he said.
The minister observed that port state control (PSC) is widely becoming an important component in the maritime safety and prevention of marine pollution.
It’s slowly being accepted as crucial for the improvement of shipping standards.
According to IOMOU officials PSC has in particular been accepted globally as an effective means of curbing substandard ships and promoting maritime safety and marine environment.
IOMOU Chairman Sudhir Kumar, said the organisation came into being in 1997 to weed out defective sea vessels and to protect the marine environment, among other things.
’’We are meeting here to review achievements recorded since we started operations and in particular how IOMOU impacted on the control of substandard ships,’’ he said.
Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (Sumatra) Director General Israel Sekilasa said: ’’Operation of substandard ships is still a big problem.
We have tried, to some extent, to control the problem, but the challenge ahead of us is bigger,’’ Sekilasa told The Guardian later.
’’But the IOMOU helps us to exchange information, making it easier to identify movements of substandard ships,’’ he added.
During the four-day meeting the eight countries will develop and review guidelines for carrying out inspections of ships, set professional standards of operations and exchange information on substandard shipping.
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