NIGERIA’s maritime authority has taken a dominant position in vessel vessel inspection regime in the West and Southern Africa maritime region. The country executed 30 percent of the region’s total inspection activiaties in 2019.This also shows a significant uptick against 26 percent achieved in the preceding year, 2018, in its Port State Control, PSC, regime.
The inspections were executed by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Authority, NIMASA.
This is contained in the just released 2019 Abuja Memorandum of Understanding, otherwise known as ‘Abuja MoU’ Report.
In the report, South Africa took second position with 12 percent of the continent’s inspection followed by Republic of Benin with 10 percent of the total number of inspections.
Nigeria and South Africa run neck-to-neck on size of domestic economy interchanging first position in Africa, while Republic of Benin benefits from vessels and cargo diversions from Nigeria when importers chose to use the neighbouring country’s ports for cost and efficiency reasons.
Other countries in the top five are Cote d’Ivoire which recorded six percent inspection of vessels while Togo and Republic of Congo recorded seven percent respectively.
Ghana, Guinea, Liberia and Democratic Republic of Congo recorded six percent, five per cent, three per cent and one percent respectively, the report stated.
According to the report, Sierra Leone and Gabon did not carry any inspection for the year under review as nothing was recorded against these countries.
The lead Port State Control, PSC regime noted that Nigeria recorded a total of 21 vessels detained from the 2,695 inspections as against 14 vessels in 2018.
The vessels types inspected were bulk carrier, combination carrier, container vessels, chemical, fish factory vessels, general cargo vessels, heavy load vessels, livestock carrier and floating production storage and offloading, FPSO.
Part of the report reads: “The Port State inspection statistics for 2019. Fourteen member States in Abuja MoU region submitted PSC inspection reports namely: Benin; Republic of Congo; Democratic Republic of Congo; Cote d’Ivoire; Gabon; Gambia; Ghana; Guinea; Liberia; Nigeria; Senegal; Sierra Leone; South Africa and Togo.
“As in the previous eight years, the PSC inspection statistical data in this report are generated from the computerised central database of Abuja MoU Information System, AMIS. 2,695 inspections were carried out on 2,091 individual ships. 21 of these vessels were detained for deficiencies during the year, resulting in a 50 per cent increase in the number of detentions above 2018 figures which was 14 detentions.
“The detention percentage per inspection of 0.78 per cent in 2019 gives a 34 per cent increase above the 0.58 per cent recorded in 2018. The spread of one deficiency for every 3.3 inspections in 2018 increased to 3.8 inspections per deficiency in 2019.
“The region recorded a 12 per cent increase in inspection efforts from 2,409 in 2018 by 14 administrations to 2,695 inspections in 2019 with same 14 administrations reporting. A total of 719 deficiencies were recorded which is lower than the 2018 figure of 727. Correspondingly, the total number of 222 inspections-with-deficiencies is lower than the 224 figures of 2018.
“The percentage inspections-with-deficiencies of 8.24 in 2019 is an 11 per cent decrease below the 2018 figures of 9.29. With respect to the categories of deficiencies, the most deficiencies were recorded on Safety of Navigation 108 (15.02 per cent) Propulsion and Auxiliary Machinery 105 (14.6 per cent), Living and Working conditions 85 (11.82 per cent), Ship’s certificates and documents 61 (8.49 per cent), Life-saving appliances 59 (8.21 per cent); Fire safety 45 (6.26 per cent); Structural conditions 36 (5.64 per cent), Emergency Systems 25 (3.48 per cent), Radio Communications 25 (3.48 per cent).
“It is noteworthy that one deficiency out of every seven deficiencies recorded was related to Safety of Navigation, which is 15.02 per cent of all deficiencies recorded. It is also the topmost defective item recorded under SOLAS closely followed by Propulsion and Auxiliary Machinery, Living and Working conditions and Ship’s certificates and documents. Twenty-two ship types were inspected in the year under review.
“The highest number of ship inspections relating to ship type were conducted on Bulk Carriers 1,014 (37.6 per cent), followed by Container ships 389 (14.4 per cent), General Cargo/multipurpose vessels 335 (12.4 per cent), Oil Tankers 283 (10.5 per cent), Refrigerated Cargo vessels 159 2 (5.9 per cent), Combination Carrier 119 (4.4 per cent), and Chemical Tankers 104 (3.9 per cent) concludes the top seven most inspected ship types. 222 of the inspections conducted generated 719 deficiencies.
“The most notable deficiencies were related to Ship’s certificates and documents 8.5 per cent, SOLAS Convention 60.5 per cent, MARPOL Convention 5.0% STCW Convention 1.7% Load Line Convention 2.1%; ILO (MLC, 2006) 15.7%. Against the backdrop of the relevant instruments for the Abuja MoU PSC regime, SOLAS related deficiencies still ranks the highest with 60.5% of all deficiencies recorded.
“The number of detentions increased to 21 from the 2018 figures of 14.
“The detentions recorded were: 38.09% for Offshore Supply; 19.05% for General cargo/multipurpose; 19.05% for Container ship; 9.52% each for Bulk Carrier and Other special activities, and 4.76% for Tugboat.
“In total, the performance percentage inspection by member States for the year 2019 is 5.36% which is still far below the target of 15% for the region but more than the previous year of 4.79%.
”Two States – Benin (19.26%) and Liberia (15.61%) were able to achieve the target of inspection of ship calls in 2019. Benin being the only State to have consistently met and surpass the targeted inspection rate for the past five years.
“ Of the eight member States (Congo, Congo-DRC, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo), that recorded actual numerical increase in PSC inspection in 2019, Nigeria’s inspection for 2019 is 821, a 29.1% increase over the 2018 figures of 636, in spite of a decrease in ship calls by 2.4% from 11,171 down to 10,908.
“ Twelve member States (Benin, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone), upload PSC inspection reports directly into AMIS database.
“The remaining two States, South Africa and Togo, still email scanned copies or courier photocopies of inspections forms to the Secretariat for uploading by the staff.
“Considering that one of the purposes of inspection database is to assist PSCOs conduct initial online search on the visiting ships, member States are encouraged to input inspection results directly, within a week, into the Abuja MoU Information System, AMIS, database. “