Parliament to ratify wreck removal convention

Parliament has to ratify the Nairobi Convention on wreck removal.

This would give the National Maritime Safety Authority more power to compel shipping organizations dispose off their wreckage parked around shores and rusting away.

These wreckage are maritime environment safety hazards for everyone.

The Wreck Removal Convention was adopted at an International Maritime Organisation Diplomatic Conference in Nairobi in 2007 and entered into force on 14 April 2015.

Executive Manager on Maritime Administration Captain Graham Proud said until that is done, shipping organization can make their tasks daunting.

“You just got to keep pushing it,” he said.

“We are working on legislations, it’s called the Nairobi convention and that enables us to ensure that the ship owners dispose off their wreckage properly.”

“We are going through that process now.”

So far their registrar through their environment division is developing a registry of the wrecked vessels, taking photographs and noting who the owners are.

“There’s 48 on the list so far,” he said.

NMSA ensures that before disposal, the ships are environmentally free in that there is no oil on board and then they tow them out to deep sea.

“They pay a bit of money,” he said and further clarified it was like running a car and if it stops working forever, anyone who owns it had the responsibility to move the car to a car wreckers place.

Captain Graham had been in the shipping business for 28 years before he arrived in PNG in 2000.