The six member Authorities of the (Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine) of the Memorandum of Understanding on PSC in the Black Sea Region (BS MOU) announced the launch of a concentrated inspection campaign on Cargo Securing Arrangements. The three-month campaign will start on September 1, 2016 and end on November 30, 2016 under the co-ordination of Directorate General for Regulation of Maritime and Inland Waters, Republic of Turkey Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications. The campaign shall be conducted simultaneously with the Tokyo MOU.
During the campaign period, member Authorities of the BS MOU will inspect, within the resources available, as many ships as possible in conjunction with routine port State control inspections. A ship should only be subject to one inspection under this CIC during the period of the campaign. The CIC is aimed to verify that there is compliance with the procedures and measures that are in place on cargo securing arrangements on board ships meeting applicable requirements of the SOLAS and related guidelines.
For the purpose of interregional harmonization of the action, the BS MOU will use the model of relevant Questionnaire developed by the Tokyo MOU with a checklist of 10 selected questions for cargo securing arrangements to establish that crew members with cargo securing duties are familiar with relevant equipment and documents and identify and understand the hazards associated with cargo securing operations.
If deficiencies are found, actions by the Port State Control Officer may vary from recording a deficiency and instructing the master to rectify it within a certain period to detaining the ship until serious deficiencies have been rectified. All inspections will be inserted in the Black Sea Information System (BSIS) and will be published on-line at the MOU web-site.
The results of the campaign shall be analysed and finding will be presented to the Black Sea MOU Committee for submission to the IMO.
Source: Black Sea MoU
