Govt to review marine laws

By JEFFREY ELAPA
THE government will review issues regarding marine laws and the composition of industry players involved in the regulatory and issuing of licenses.
Minister for Transport and Works Francis Awesa has learnt that shipping industry players’ involvement in regulating and issuing of shipping licenses was not right.
“An industry person should not be a chairman of the NMSA or should not be in the board that regulates, administers and issues licenses because it is a conflict of interest. Therefore I will look into it and make changes before the 2012 election,” he said.
He said many new players interested in coming to the country were discouraged by the conflict of interest of certain people on the board.
The other issue which needs to be looked at is the hefty charges imposed by shipping companies.
He said it was also very expensive to ship containers from PNG to overseas while it was cheaper to ship containers from Singapore to PNG.
Awesa said during a media conference at the transport headquarters in Port Moresby last Friday that some of the owners of shipping companies had been taking out court orders when government officers tried to investigate and look into issues of safety in their firms.
Shipping company owners such as Peter Sharp had been involved in the board and had also been taking out court orders preventing government officers from looking into their operations, he said.
Any business that operates in the country has to follow laws of the country.