IMO audit to assist Seychelles in remaining compliant |08 June 2016
The International Maritime Organisation is to carry out an audit of the Seychelles so as to guide the country in remaining compliant to the various conventions it signed in relation to the organisation.
It will also further enhance Seychelles’ capacity to cope with the new regulations that come out practically almost every year.
The objectives of the audit are to assist in fostering and improving capacity building; to determine the extent of implementation and enforcement of the IMO instruments and to assist member states to improve their flag, coastal or port status.
Before the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) team came to Seychelles preparation work was done between the IMO and the Seychelles Maritime Safety Administration (SMSA) through its director general Captain Joachim Valmont.
A ceremony to kick-start the audit process took place yesterday at the Seychelles Ports Authority (SPA) conference room at the New Port in the presence of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Transport Joel Morgan; IMO Lead Auditor Aji Vasudevan; chief executive of the SPA Colonel Andre Ciseau; Captain Valmont and other high officials of the marine and port authority.
In his address for the occasion, Minister Morgan said we as a small country have taken a keen
interest in upgrading our laws and our practices as well as our policies.
“As a member of the IMO, Seychelles takes great interest in the implementation of our capacity building projects in the IMO and other regional member states geared at combating other maritime threats such as piracy, armed robbery at sea, drug trafficking, terrorism, arms trafficking and trafficking in person in our region by hosting workshops, table top exercises and by taking over the chairmanship of the contact group on piracy off the coast of Somalia (CGPCS),” said the minister.
He recalled that just last week Seychelles had the honour and privilege of hosting the 19th plenary group session of the CGPS.
He added since Seychelles has been upgraded to the IMO white list country and achieving this primary milestone, there has been continued efforts to honour our international obligations under the various IMO instruments.
Mr Vasudevan said the audit committee is here to help Seychelles in taking the country forward and not to point fingers.
He said his mission is to help Seychelles achieve the level of consistency required by the IMO and remaining on par with other member states.
Elaborating on the purpose of the audit, Captain Valmont said since Seychelles was declared and IMO white list country in June last year, the country was notified that it would be audited three months down the line this year.
“We were not afraid. Even with our limited workforce, we decided to go through ISO compliant for the whole examination administration. The first visit of the ISO auditor was in March and the few arrears that were raised were addressed when the auditor came back three weeks ago. The second phase of the ISO auditing went quite well and now we are just waiting for our certification,” explained Capt Valmont.
He also remarked the preparation has helped them to face the IMO audit today. He expects SMSA will pass the audit as 80% of the job needed to be done has been completed.
