Pretoria: 09 September 2019
The South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) has once again given an assurance that South Africa will retain its status in the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) STCW Convention ‘Whitelist’.
The assurance was given by SAMSA acting Chief Executive Officer, Mr Sobantu Tilayi while addressing a gathering of members of the South African Institute of Marine Engineers and Naval Architects (SAIMENA) in Cape Town on Friday afternoon.
He’d been invited to specifically come and address the organisation’s members on the status of the country regarding the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers, 1978 (STCW Convention) since the near fall-out earlier this year after close on two thirds of IMO Member States on the list reportedly faced removal.
The incident in April 2019 sparked fears and concerns among seafarers, shipping sector and related marine and maritime professionals across many countries, including South Africa as it reportedly risked among other things, a massive loss of jobs and likely manning challenges in the shipping transport sector.
This was averted after the IMO soon corrected the situation following to a meeting with members States. South Africa, one of 129 countries listed, had been on the IMO STCW Convention ‘Whitelist’ since 2001.
On Friday, for about half an hour during lunchtime, Mr Tilayi outlined the genesis of the challenge with regards South Africa and outlined steps that were being taken currently to ensure that the country meets its periodic review obligations to the IMO’s STCW Convention on time for the next submission due in 2020.
Throughout the process, Mr Tilayi said the maritime sector would be constantly updated and occasional involved directly for its contribution to matters such as reviews of legislation and related.
While about it, Mr Tilayi also touched on various other topics related, inclusive of the current repositioning of SAMSA as a central professional maritime administrator instrumental to the development of South Africa as maritime centre of excellence by 2030 in line with the country’s National Development Plan.
He also touched briefly on the country’s need for higher preparedness to exploit new investment opportunities being identified, similar to the burgeoning shipping bunkering services in Port Elizabeth (a.k.a Nelson Mandela Bay) on the southern east coast of South Africa.
For Mr Tilayi’s full remarks (27 minutes), click on the video below.
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