Shipping firms neglecting safety as top priority: NMSA

By MADELEINE AREK
SHIPPING companies have in the past, had a tendency of turning a blind eye to the safety of their vessels, putting the lives of the travelling public at risk.
The laxity of PNG’s shipping laws and of enforcing agencies in policing these laws, had allowed companies to operate unseaworthy vessels as well as bringing in very old ships and “treating us as a dumping ground for old vessels” National Maritime Safety Authority general manager Chris Rupen, said yesterday.
According to Mr Rupen, because monitoring agencies were ill-equipped to effectively carry out regular safety inspections, these companies got away with using vessels that were not seaworthy, often putting the lives of the travelling public and of thousands of kina worth of cargo at risk.
While it was not the intention of NMSA to delay the shipping operations of companies, it was important that regular safety checks were done so that the safety of the travelling public was not compromised, Mr Rupen said.
He said his office had the responsibility of policing shipping rules and regulations and that was what they have been doing over the three years since their establishment in 2006.
“Our officers carry out routine checks on all shipping vessels. Sometimes the deficiencies are minor and take a few minutes to rectify. At other times, they take a few hours and we tell the master to rectify the situation. If the deficiency is major, we ground the vessel,” he said.
“We work with these companies and not against them. We do what we do to make them more responsible and often, they are happy with what our officers do and comply.”
He said it was their duty to make sure shipping companies took responsibility of the safety of their ships; that they did not let defects go by.
“We do random inspections on all shipping vessels, foreign and local. On foreign vessels, we carry out port state control inspections while on domestic vessels, our officers’ carry out flag state control inspections. These checks are done to make shipping companies responsible,” he said.