IMO to Celebrate First International Day for Women in Maritime May 18th
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has announced that the first International Day for Women in Maritime would be celebrated on May 18th 2022.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of a 3 day Workshop for Heads of Maritime Administration in the West and Central Africa region which commenced in Lagos on Monday, the Head, Africa Section, Subdivision for Maritime Development Technical Cooperation Division, Mr William Azuh made the announcement.
Mr Azuh encouraged heads of maritime administrations gathered at the workshop to ensure that women are part of the maritime work.
He however frowned at the fact that none of the audited African Member States had completed, terminated or effectively implemented the Corrective Action Plan after the period of follow up audit of International Maritime Organization Member States Audit generally referred to as IMSAS.
He said “actions on the Corrective Action Plan (CAP) have been dismal, to say the least. If there is no feedback from the audit, you would then wonder why your administrations were audited in the first place. IMO has been literally ‘begging’ the maritime administrations to report back to it on the Corrective Actions implemented or lack thereof which were part of the audit recommendations. IMO is willing and able to assist the countries to implement those Corrective Actions but the initiation would have to come from you”
He pointed out that since the commencement of the audit in its mandatory phase (January 2016), twenty African Member States were audited including Cape Verde, Congo, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritania, Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe.
Others according to him included Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, the Gambia, Sudan and Togo. He disclosed that all the audited Member States were provided with an Audit Final Report that reflected the agreed Corrective Action Plan to be, in general, effectively implemented after three to four years following the audit.
“Meanwhile, Member States are encouraged to provide IMO, periodically, with comments on the effective implementation of the Corrective Action Plan (CPICAP). To assist Member States, a CPICAP model form has been developed by IMO and sent to the Member States to be used when communicating to IMO.
“As a matter of fact and after the period of the follow-up audit, not one of the audited African Member States had completed, terminated/effectively implemented the agreed CAP. So far, IMO had finalized ten audit follow-up reports which reflect the CAP situation. This means that for the upcoming audit in the second cycle, the auditors will start with a heritage on the non-addressed findings from the first cycle
He went on to reveal that since the beginning of the mandatory phase of the audit, not a single training for auditors has been conducted in the African region explaining that the unique and latest one was conducted in Togo in 2015 for 23 participants from nine African Member States.
According to him, “Only three auditors among the 23 trained were nominated by their respective administrations. This needs to be addressed by encouraging beneficiary Member States to nominate auditors as that is the essence of the training”
