– PSC blames Russia-Ukraine conflict
– As Nigeria leads in number of inspections, ship calls, detentions
Vincent Toritseju
Lagos — Countries within the entire West African Sub-region recorded a drop in virtually all indices of ship inspection, detention and vessel types for the year 2022.
A total of 62,087 vessels called at the various ports in the countries in the region as against 64,943 in 2021 representing a -4.4 percent decline.
Despite the drop, the Port State Control, PSC, Nigeria led the regions in all the indices of PSC regime for the year and 2021 as it recorded a total 648 number of vessel inspections followed by Senegal with 394, Cote d’ Ivoire with 338 and Gabon with 290.
There was also a drop in the number of member states that submitted their annual PSC report as only 13 members uploaded their report to the Headquarters of the Abuja Memorandum of Understanding Office in Abuja while ten countries did not conduct or submitted their PSC report for the year under review.
The defaulting countries include Angola, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Sao Tome and Principe while countries like Angola, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. Sao Tome and Principe submitted only one PSCI report for the 2021.
Besides, while a total of 23 vessels with deficiencies were detained in 2021, 19 were detain in 2022 for the same reason.
The drop in the PSC regime in the region was partly attributed to the current war between Ukraine and Russia.
Part of the report reads: “This presents the summary of the Port State Control Inspection Report for the year 2022, two years after Corona Virus Pandemic ravaged the world and presently, the effect of the incursion between the Russia Federation and the Republic of Ukraine.
“In 2022 14 member states out of the 22 in the Abuja MoU region submitted PSC inspection reports and a total of number of 62,087 ship calls was recorded for the region.
‘‘The following member States have not submitted inspection reports to the Abuja MoU Information System AMIS database. Angola, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Namibia and Sao Tome and Principe
‘‘However, Cameroon has begun conducting inspections for 2023 and gradually uploading them to AMIS database, which results are expected to be reflected in the 2023 Annual Report/
“In summary, 2,421 inspections were conducted, and 19 vessels detained for deficiency, resulting in a 17.39 percent decrease in the number of detentions in 2022which recorded 23 detentions.
“The detention percentage per inspection of 0.78 percent in 2022 gives a 0.1 percent decrease below the 0.88 percent recorded in 2021.
“Overall, the performance percentage inspection by Members for the year 2022 is 3.90 percent compared with the year 2021, which was 4.01 percent, both percentages are far below the agreed target for the region.
‘‘A total of 1,305 deficiencies were recorded in 2022 which is higher than the 1,274 recorded in 2021. ‘‘Correspondingly, the total number of inspections with deficiencies for 2022 is 279, which is higher than the 272 for 2021’’.
