By PETER KORUGL
PAPUA New Guinea is not fully equipped to engage in search and rescue operations at sea.
This was revealed by the director for Search and Rescue branch of the National Maritime Safety Authority Eka Elore during a presentation at the 4th Disaster Management Conference in Lae last week.
Mr Elore also pointed out that even small boats, the most popular form of sea transport for people, was not adequately covered by existing laws.
And it required a Small Boats Act, which among other things, will make it mandatory for dealers of anything less than 10m, including banana boats, to install homing devices before the boats are sold.
Mr Elore said this would make it easy for rescue workers to locate boats in distress at times of mishaps.
The search and rescue operations in PNG at present are based on guess work.
When boats fail to arrive at their destinations, they are reported missing and usually, those reports reach authorities two hours or a day later in most cases.
Search and rescue operations are mounted with helicopters hired at US$5,000 (K14,686.50) per hour.
Sometimes, this takes only hours, other times it can take weeks before searches were usually called off.
“The merchant Shipping Act, Chapter 242, regulates vessels over 10m in length.
“Most of fatal accidents involved banana boats and other form of small boats less than 10m in length.
“The present Small Craft Act adopted by some provinces is inadequate,” Mr Elore said.
The new Act, he said, would apply to all commercial boats equal to or less than 10m with the exemption of pleasure crafts, dugout canoes, traditional crafts and inflatable rubber dinghies.
He called on relevant authorities to work together with maritime provinces to ensure that a safe and reliable form of water transport for ordinary people was created.
He said the new law would develop an accident reporting system for small boats, develop testing systems to aid provincial government in issuing operators licence and promote small boat safety awareness for all maritime provinces and communities.