If a ship is taken over by pirates anywhere in the Straits of Malacca or South China Sea (presumably by killing the crew) and if the ship can have a new identity including a new "Certificate of Registry" then I would call it the curse of modern technology. Why should a ship be registered without establishing the identity of the ship, the proof of ownership and above all without a deletion certificate from the previous registry?
In the next port why the authorities should not check the markings of the vessel and ensure that the vessel is genuinely the one presenting the documents. If we fail to do what we are supposed to do then we are in fact a party to legitimising a pirated ship or in other words a party to activities related to piracy. Online information is good but online registration is not good. It helps pirates.
A good registry of ships and maritime administration will in fact provide a service to facilitate international trade and commerce. They are not expected to be moneymaking department of the Government.
The Government will be expected to meet some of the expenses of this public service. From financial point of view it would be considered as a success if about 70 to 80 percent of the fundings is met by the fees and other charges collected by the Administration.
Flag is a matter of national pride. No self respecting country should give out their registry to be operated by a private business venture. Such commercial operators will evidently look for profit before quality and the flag will soon end up in disrepute.
The Maritime Administration, including the registry of ships, must remain a part of the Government through a degree of autonomy. The Directorate General of Ports and Shipping be made fully autonomous and manned by hard core professionals, if we want to promote, ship owning in Pakistan and promote Port industry to be compatible to Ports of the world.
There is nothing as international in nature as shipping. There are international conventions to regulate almost every aspect of maritime and shipping business. It is surprising that there is no specific convention on registration of ships and that is the reason whey we do not have common practices and procedures.
The Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS82) has some references to registration of ships but it does not provide the complete code. In 1986 an international instrument was adopted in Geneva on Registration of Ships but it never came into force.
Even if the 86 Convention came into force it would not serve any purpose because the convention was adopted on a different backdrop. It was meant to eliminate "flag of Convenience" which it failed. It does not contain any provision on common practice and procedure. There is a definite need for an international instrument to outline the procedures for registrations of ships.
Article 91 of the UNCLOS82 is on the subject of nationality of ships and article 94 summarises the duties of a flag state. Article 105 provided powers for parties to engage its naval and security forces to seize pirate or pirated ships and take into custody those responsible for such unlawful acts.
This provision of UNCLOS82 may turn out to be meaningless (on matters of jurisdiction) unless the member state has appropriate legislation (with penal provision) giving necessary powers to its security forces and jurisdiction to its courts to deal with such cases.
However one aspect of UNCLOS82 gives reasons for concern. In article 92 it is states. A ship may not change its flag during a voyage or while in a port of call, save in the case of real transfer of ownership or change of registry. The term "during a voyage" could mean the duration of the sea passage. Ships must never be allowed to change name or registry while at sea.
This is what the pirates would like to do. The second part of the sentence creates more confusion. Ships must be allowed to change name, ownership or registry only when in a port where it can be physically checked identified and marked. If a ship is not allowed to change registry and flag in a port, then the question is.
Where else it should do so. The term "during the voyage" perhaps refers to delivery of the cargo (remaining onboard) and accomplishment of the on going contract. This makes good sense but must not be dependent on interpretation. The use of the term " real transfer of ownership" clearly shows that the conference was not aware of other possible scenario such as the widely practised " registration under bare boat charter' The "Law of the Sea" division of the United Nations should study and review article 92 and if necessary, initiate the process of amendment. In any case UNCLOS82 cannot provide a total code on procedures relating to registration and hence there is need for a separate international instrument.
The registration of a ship does not close the chapter for the registry. It is just the beginning of a new chapter where the registry becomes responsible for yet another ship to ensure that the survey certification are done in compliance with the international requirements.
The international instruments as well as the national legislation will follow the common principle of application of the standards to own flag ships wherever they may be and foreign ships when within the waters of the party state. This makes two distinct roles for the Administration such as the one as Flag State and the other as the Port State. In IMO terminology they are referred to as PSI (flag state implementation) and PSC (port state control).
IMO is very keen to see that party states have appropriate legislation, competent administration, documented procedures and system of maintaining records to meet its obligation as a flag state. The PSI sub-committee has developed a set of forms (self assessment form) for party states to fill and send to IMO for an assessment and evaluation of the compliance.
Most of the party states fail to send any feedback. The system is clearly not working. It is strongly recommended to introduce an amendment to the SOLAS74 to state that a party which fails to return FSI/SAF forms for two successive years will be considered to have denounced the convention. This in turn will mean that certificates issued by or on behalf of such a state will not be considered as SOLAS certificates and the ships under such flag will virtually become inoperative.
This will definitely bring the desired results. Recently there has been lot of talks on STCW 95 and the white list. It must be understood that being in the white list (*considered by IMO as having given full and complete effect to the provision of the convention) does not automatically entail recognition by other party states.
It is still the final responsibility of the Flag State to ensure that the certification system complies with the essential requirement before it recognises such certificates and issues endorsement to appropriate certificates for officers to serve on its ships.
Whereas the IMO white listing is a paper exercise, regulation 1/10clearly stipulates that the flag state where it feels it necessary should even visit the training facilities to satisfy itself before recognising certificates issued by a party state.
Pakistan is on white list till 2009, as hard efforts were made to bring Pakistan on white list from 2003 to 2006, which has given boost to employment of Pakistani seafarers remitting about 70 mill dollars per annum and bringing employment to more that 12000 seafarers. It is negligible when compared to India and Philippines where seafares are remitting 0.5 billion/1 billion USD respectively.
With regard to Port State Control I would like to state that one should not preach what it cannot practise itself. A state, which cannot meet its obligations as a flag state, has no moral right to conduct port state inspections. This statement should be viewed from, a positive angle and used by the students of the WMU to convince respective Governments to streamline their own Administrations.
FSI comes before PSC. The philosophy of port state control inspection is that the lives of other seafarers are as important as our own and as such uniform standards of compliance are required from all ships. Detention of a ship under PSC is justified only when allowing a ship to proceed to sea would endangering, life, property or environment.
The PSC does not have to be under a regional agreement. Every sovereign state can conduct its own PSC. However it makes better sense to do it under regional agreements by which one can avoid duplication, waste of time and resources and above all co-ordinated action will provide better scope for targeting such standard ships.
The most important thing to remember is that the term "Port State" does not refer to the Administration of the Port but in fact refers to the "Administration of the state" to which the Port belongs The port authority and its administration should not be involved in port state control.
Finally a few words about he classification societies. In todays' world of globalisation the role of the international classification societies cannot be over emphasised. They (specially the IACS members) have the resources, competence and the global network.
This does not mean that we have to delegate everything to them. We have to find a balanced way of utilising their services to meet our needs and requirements but still monitor and exercise full control bearing in mind that only functions can be delegated but not the responsibility and obligations.
The duty of any Government is to facilitate business and not to engage itself in business. However because of national interest some of the developing countries may have state owned shipping enterprise. Any developing country that aspires to supply seafarers to a global context will require ships willing to employ trainee seafarers (in addition to the requirement of the safe manning) so that the trainee seafarers can perform the initial sea service that is mandatory for obtaining a certificate.
This is where the state owned companies came into the scenario because privately owned companies are unlikely to co-operate in such training projects. However in addition to providing the training facilities (so vital to create job opportunities for national seafarers), the company is also expected to run in profit (and not a charity on government subsidy). However a ship owned by a state owned enterprise must not be referred to as a Government vessel. It is just another merchant ship.
The only difference is that instead of being owned by a private company it is owned by a state owned company. Only those vessels are Government vessels that are used in law enforcement and other regulatory measures such as those used by the Police. Customs, Immigration, Fisheries inspectorate or the Coastguard.
The role and responsibility of an Administration must not be mixed up with that of a commercial company (even though it may be state owned) All efforts should be made to keep the company free of bureaucratic controls and interference. The success of any commercial venture will depend on the autonomy and freedom to take its own business decisions.
The Government (the minister as well as the civil servants) should not get involved in the management and operation of the company. If they become a party to the management and operation of the company, the chain of accountability will be lost.
The minister being the public representative and acting in the public interest he should appoint a capable and competent person having commercial shipping background as the Chief Executive. The Chief Executive should be directly responsible to the minister for the performance of the company and the minister will remain answerable to the public through the parliament.
I not only admire but fully subscribe to the views expressed in your editorial to make Directorate General fully autonomous to regulate Ports and Shipping Industry.
(Concluded)
No comments:
Post a Comment