Amid the second wave of coronavirus pandemic along with the crew change crisis within shipping industry, Maritime Authority of Jamaica urges that a global network of crew change hubs would help alleviate the humanitarian crisis seafarers are dealing with.
According to Rear Admiral Peter Brady, Director General of the Maritime Authority of Jamaica, crew change hubs could offer a short-term solution to the barriers presented by global travel restrictions, ensuring vital crew changes could take place and facilitating trade and logistics to the benefit of the world economy.
As the authority further stated:
“In the Caribbean for example, several smaller States still have not re-opened their borders, so no one is coming in and no one is going out. With a hub, seafarers would be able to move and to move more freely. Some natural crew change hubs already exist pre-Covid-19, by virtue of the concentration of shipping, and we suggest that more could be developed to deal with the current stagnation of crew travel in parts of the world.”
What is more, Admiral Brady, a former chair of the IMO’s STCW Committee, stressed that the pandemic has highlighted that seafarers are the backbone of the global supply chain and that crew retention is even more critical to the continuation of world trade.
“Crew retention can be tackled by more port State and flag State administrations taking stronger positions on ensuring that living and working conditions onboard ships meet the international standards, and by designating crew as essential workers with the attendant privileges”.
In light of the situation, Jamaica also reopened its borders to enable controlled entry and transit of crew and has designated seafarers as essential workers under its 2020 Disaster Risk Management Order in June.
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Concluding, through the Maritime Authority of Jamaica, the country has implemented measures geared at supporting the repatriation of seafarers and crew changes in general. To date nearly 2,300 crew changes have been facilitated.
