The United Kingdom, which includes Anguilla and other British Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies, has to become compliant with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Instruments Implementation Code (Triple III Code) by 2020.
Under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the UK has developed the implementation of the duties, obligations and responsibilities for Flag, Port and Coastal States to the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies – through the extension of the Maritime Convention relating to Safety of Life at Sea and Protection of the Maritime Environment.
To prepare Anguilla for this exercise, was a team from the UK Maritime Coast Guard Agency comprising Ms Sarah Stride, EMA Lead Auditor; Mr Steve Horn, Senior Lead Auditor, CSSF Project; Ms Jennifer Watson, Senior Lawyer, DFT Maritime; and Mr Simon Whitbourn, Legal Consultant. They arrived on island on April 19 and will leave on April 25.
On Wednesday morning, in Executive Council Chambers, Mr Horn and Ms Stride delivered a presentation, to the senior management teams of the Anguilla Air and Sea Port Authority, Immigration, Fire and MICUH, on the importance of being compliant and the consequences.
“We’re establishing how far Anguilla is at the moment, identifying gaps and working towards a plan to get compliant. One of my colleagues will be looking at the coastal state elements and really looking at and drawing up a gap analysis, see what is needed, see where Anguilla is at the moment and putting a plan in place to get compliant,” Stride, told The Anguillian following the presentation.
“We’ve also got colleagues that are looking at legislation to help enact and have legal powers to enforce the requirements on local and visiting vessels to make sure they are safe…We’ll also discuss the progress of the shipping register – having systems in place with management of the vessels that are on the shipping register and also on getting systems in place that are strong and robust,” Stride, outlined.
The EMA’s Lead Auditor also disclosed that she will be visiting all of the Overseas Territories to see what work needs to be done for the islands to become compliant and to be ready for audit in 2020. She has already visited the BVI, and will be going on to Montserrat, Turks and Caicos and other OTs.
Although it is known which islands will be selected for audit by the IMO, it is strongly believed that Anguilla will be selected given its unique location with its counterparts French and Dutch St Martin.
“The UK is the Member State. It is made up of a number of the OTs and Crown Dependencies. At the moment we don’t know what that audit would be like for the wider UK member states, but what we feel is that Anguilla is an interesting island because you are neighboring with the French and the Dutch, so it would look attractive to see how the UK and Anguilla, as an OTS of the UK, have implemented the conventions that have been extended to them. So yes…its looks attractive, more than likely, Anguilla will be identified to be visited,” Stride stated.
Miss Stride also mentioned that leading up to the audit in 2020, they will be visiting Anguilla in 2019 for a test run: “…but we will be working with Anguilla over this period. We are going to be doing a dummy run of that audit. Back in the UK, we have an IMO auditor on our team because the IMO audit team is made up of different member states that would look at that particular member state. We have a trained auditor so more than likely he would be part of the dummy run in 2019, and he would have the experience of seeing other member states systems – so we’ve got an advantage. We know what IMO would be looking at so that would help us get ready and prepared,” she added.
On Friday the team will meet with management of the Anguilla Community College to discuss the way forward for the College to continue offering the Standards of Training Certification and WatchKeeping – STCW 2010 for the seafarers.
