– An indication that more vessels are falling short of standards
– As Nigeria, Senegal and Congo leads in ship inspections
Esther Oritse
Lagos — There are indications that more of the vessels calling at ports across the African continent have fallen short of minimum standard of safety and seaworthiness as the Abuja Memorandum of Understanding, Abuja, MoU, recorded a total of 23 vessel detentions in 2023 as against 19 in 2022, indicating a 21.05 increase of number of vessels of such category.
The Abuja Memorandum of Understanding is the legal document under which maritime authorities of countries in the West and Central African region agreed to develop and implement a common mechanism for the respective port state control activities. The main work of Abuja MoU is the harmonization of the port state control procedures and practices of all the countries in the region aimed at eliminating the operation of substandard shipping within the region thereby ensuring maritime safety, security, protection of our marine environment from pollution, improving the working and living conditions of ship crew, and to facilitate regional cooperation and exchange of information among member States.
In the 2024 report of Port State Control Inspection of the Abuja MoU, the region recorded a 28.75 percent increase in vessel inspections in 2023 as a total of 3,117 inspection exercise took place compared to 2,421 in 2022.
A breakdown of the report showed that while Nigeria recorded the highest number of 666 vessel inspections followed by Senegal with 486 and Republic of Congo recorded a total of 348 while The Gambia had the lowest number of 19 ship inspections in 2023.
Others are Cote d’Ivoire 347, Gabon 287, Togo 286, Ghana 168, South Africa 126, Cameroon 122, Guinea 112, while Benin Republic and Sierra Leone recorded 42 and 45 respectively.
The report also indicated that a total of nine countries did not submit vessel inspection report to the Abuja MoU Information System database for the year 2023 and these are Angola, Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Namibia and Sao Tome and Principe.
From the report, it only the Republic of Gabon that met the inspection performance target of 15 percent in 2023 as it inspected a total of 1,807 ships that entered Gabon as against South Africa recorded a decrease in ship inspection as 148 vessels were inspected in 022 compared with 126 in 2023.
Part of the report reads: “Overall performance percentage inspection by member states for the year 2023 is 3.98 percent, compared with 3.90 in 2022. Both percentages are far below the agreed 15 percent target for the region.
“A total number of 1,384 deficiencies were recorded in 2023 which is higher than the 1,305 recorded in 2022. Correspondingly, the total number of inspection-with-deficiencies for 2023 was put at 296 which is higher than the 279 figures for 2022.
“A total of 296 inspection-with-deficiencies conducted, generated 1,384 deficiencies with the most deficiencies relating to Safety of Lives at Sea, SOLAS Convention recording 57.59 percent, the International Maritime Labour’s Maritime Labour Convention MLC, recorded 16.91percent while ship’s certification and documents recorded 10.33 percent deficiency in the year under review.
“Others are Maritime Pollution Convention, MARPOL recorded 7.30percent deficiency against Load Line Convention that recorded 2.82percent percent deficiency while Standards of Training, Certification, and Watch-keeping, STCW, recorded 1.66 percent deficiency.”
