Vincent Toritseju
Lagos — In a bid to bring about international best practices in the administration of Port State Control, PSC, in West and Central Africa, the International Maritime Organization, IMO, the Abuja Memorandum of Understanding, Abuja MoU and the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network, MACN, have commenced moves to eliminate unethical practices and raise the integrity of officers involved in the implementation of PSC.
Speaking at the opening of a two-day training programme for officers of PSC, Secretary General of the Abuja MoU, Capt. Sunday Umoren said that there is a need to understand the mandate which according to him, is to rid the world of substandard ships.
Umoren explained that the training is the first of such collaboration that the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) is having with any Regional MoU or Flag State and this makes Nigeria the pacesetter in aligning with the International Maritime Organisation on its current drive on ethics and anti-corruption in the maritime sphere.
Omoren said: “We are all aware of the over-arching guiding principle of the Code of Conduct as it forms a major part of the Memorandum texts of all the Memoranda.
“The reason for these circulars is to reinforce the importance of ‘ETHICS’ and a high standard of ‘PROFESSIONALISM’ in the conduct of PSC inspections. The MoU recognising the key role played by Port State Control Officers and their constant interface with an array of stakeholders in the maritime industry, found it expedient to collaborate with MACN to bring about this training.
“This program aligns with IMO’s guidance circular “to implement and adopt procedures against maritime corruption, which includes the need to establish penalties that are effective, proportionate and dissuasive; and ensure that these penalties are applied to prevent corruption incidents. We are also encouraged to strengthen capacity and institution-building to prevent and combat corruption effectively.
“To my mind, unethical and corrupt practices can be categorized into three major parts – 1) Accepting 2) Giving and 3) Standing Idling by, this is, not reporting cases that you may be aware of, even though you have rejected offer.
“We all agree that the consequences of substandard ships include threat to Human Life, risk to the marine environment, threat and Risks to means of livelihood, threat and exposure of maritime facilities, risk to cargo, economic impact knock on effect (disruption of supplies), financial and asset related risks – not limited to the ship owner with varying extents of liability for the accidents plus insurance which undermines IMO’s initiative of“ Safer Seas and Cleaner Oceans”.
“Unethical and corrupt practices tend to accentuate and bolster these aforementioned consequences.
“There is a general understanding that corrupt practices increase during hard times but the truth remains that it cannot be used as an excuse to compromise one’s integrity.”
