Voluntary Imo Members State Audit

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

It is widely accepted that International Maritime Organization (IMO) as specialized agency of United Nation (UN) in Maritime field, since was establish in 1957, has contributing to improve the safety at sea through several instrument such as conventions, protocols, resolution and guidelines that seem to be an efficient tool by the countries and specially to Maritime Administrations. On the other hand, also is a fact that casualties and incidents around the world still occur and is necessary taking more and better measures.

The States, as part of the ratification process of IMO instruments, accepted the obligation and responsibility of carry out an adequate system to control ships entitled to fly their flag and to ensure the compliance of International Law that previously was committed. The efficiency of any IMO instrument depend directly of the way that states implement and enforce them, and also of the feedback that they share with other member states through the Organization in order to take advantage obtaining lessons learned as a result of those experiences.

Having in mind that some States lack of experience, expertise and resources to compliance and enforce adequately all provisions of different IMO instruments that are party, the Organization takes measures to help them in order to improve this situation and the ability to respond effectively to Conventions and resolutions that were ratified.

One of the most relevant measures in that direction was a program of Voluntary Audits that basically considers review the effective compliance of some conventions and other IMO mandatory instrument through International experts, considering the vision of IMO about "oceans safer and cleaner".

This essay will provide an approach about the aspects that involve an IMO Voluntary Audit, important considerations in this process and it will take the case of Chile as example to finalize with author conclusions.

Background

After the accident to the Tanker Prestige in November of 2002, Spain put on the table the necessity to account speedy with an IMO Model Audit that should be mandatory for member states and determine the level of fulfilment of flag states in implementing standards and recommended practices. The proposition of Spain was based, among other causes, in the deficiencies of some State to control and comply with memoranda of understanding and the case of flag states whose ships carried out international voyages without an adequate proficiency as an IMO audit process (MSC 77/7/4, 2003).

IMO, in his constant quest to ensure an efficient implementation of their Instruments around the world, assigned top priority to develop this kind of international measures in order to increase the safety at sea and protection of marine environment. Thus, in 2004 the Assembly approves for resolution A.946 (23), the establishment and development of Voluntary IMO Audit Plan to the member States and asked to the Council elaborated procedures for implementing it.

The Audit Plan consider as a main reference the Code for the implementation of mandatory IMO instruments of 2007 (Code), forming the basis of the Audit Scheme, particularly in regard to the determination of the aspects that should perform in audits urging to governments to be submitted voluntarily and help to the Organization, in this way, in the efforts to achieve successful the implementation of mandatory instruments. For instance, meanwhile the Council monitoring the implementation of the plan in order to improve and refine it, Administrations can contribute resources to ensure the Audit plan and provide competent auditors and support that they need.

The Code, which was adopted by resolution A.1019 (26) and amendments in 2009, pursues as main goal enhance maritime safety and protection of the marine environment. Besides the Audit, this Code also provides regulation to inspection by Port State Control verifying if the actual condition of vessels and its crew are in conformity with regulations and certificates that it carries. In general, the Code offers the framework for Audits and is clear about that each Administration will be bound for develop those instruments which are Contracting Governments or Parties. In addition, States should cover an efficient implementation and enforce those rules, in order to achieve, maintain and improvement organizational performance and capacity.

Overview of Voluntary Audits

The Voluntary Audit, as its name implies, is a review self-imposed by which a member state can determine the grade of fulfilment of applicable IMO instruments. According to the framework and procedures for voluntary IMO Member State Audit Scheme (A 24/Res.974, 2005), the procedure of a normal audit considers basically three main steps. The first one is planning that involve prepare details and select auditors; second, audit it self and conclusions that consists firstly in open meeting, interviews, check documentation and close meeting, and the final step is reporting and verification, that involve the final report with a plan of corrective measures and follow-up process.

The planning stage begins once the member state submits the requirement to be auditable. The government and secretary general sign a memorandum of cooperation that contains the particulars of the audit process between IMO and the State. A model of this document is possible to find in appendix 1 of IMO Resolution A.974 (24). The member states should facilitate the audit considering this memorandum of cooperation as well as decide with Secretary General whom will be the members of the team that will carry out the examination. The auditors must have adequate professional competence and the state will know the name of the team previously to begin the audit. The leader auditor is key and usually he plan the audit, supervise the rest of the team, prepare the report and assistance to the member state in verify corrective measures and monitoring.

The plan also should include the places to inspect, the objectives and scope of the audit, start date and end date, names of participant (it mean auditors and key personnel of the Maritime administration), documentation that will be necessary, a program or schedule of audit, a brief of information with argues that will be exposed, requirements or special details of the entry country, the language that will be used and duties of the audit team.

The Audit stage basically meets with the previously planned and in this instance the audit team observes and evaluates the following six issues stipulated in Resolution A 974 (24):

Compliance of Code for the implementation of mandatory IMO instrument.

The enactment of the legislation to implement the applicable IMO instruments regarding to maritime safety and pollution prevention, as they are part.

The administration and enforcement of the laws and regulations of the Member State.

The mechanism and controls that is made by delegation of authority of a Member State in a recognized organization with the aim of implementing the requirements relating with safety and environmental protection.

The mechanism, monitoring and exchange of information from the Member State with respect to its own survey and certification process and to recognized organization.

The extent that the Member State to comply with any other obligation and responsibility placed upon the applicable IMO instruments.

The compulsory instruments that the audits involve and form the framework are International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS 1974), International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL 1973), International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW 1978), International Convention on Load Lines (LL 1966), Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREG 1972) and International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships (TONNAGE 1969). These treaties and respective protocols have been ratified for the vast majority of member States that in average represent around of 96% of the world tonnage (C 102/6/1, 2009). Obviously the scope of each audit will depend on the regulations that each State has ratified as well as respective protocols.

In reporting and verification stage, Administration must respond to the conclusion of auditor team as well as implement a program with the measures to correct it. This phase also promotes the capacity and provision of technical assistance to Administration that needed, as well as indicate aspects to improve and in some case support to fulfil its responsibilities. For instance, the auditors provide information and lessons learned after the review, also give recommendations from other member states audited, sharing advantages of those experiences and providing useful feedback with the aim of implement efficiently the IMO instruments.

According to the Secretary General (C 102/6/1, 2009) could be possible that audits become a relevant mandatory instrument of the Organization because seems to be that the scheme of audit may lose its strength of purpose. In fact, at the beginning of its life, there were many countries offered to be audit, however, lately only a few members have declared their intention to submitted, showing clearly a decrease trend. Thus, approximately a quarter of states have been audited and they are governments with resources to do it. Regarding to financial resources, the average of audit team costs are around of 11,000 euros and obviously are funded by each state, representing other problem to achieve that states with less resources make the decision to be audited.

Voluntary Audit by Chilean Maritime Administration

In order to understand better a process of Audit, this essay take as example the case of Chile that it was the third country in the world in commitment to be voluntarily audited by IMO in June of 2006.

According to the report about the experience of Chile in voluntary audit process (A 25/8/3, 2007), between 19 and 26 of March of 2007, Maritime Administration of Chile, called Directorate General of the Maritime Territory and Merchant Marine (Directemar), carried out the audit based on Memorandum of cooperation signed between IMO and that State. Directemar is the organism of the Chilean Navy, by which the Government comply International agreements in order to protect life at sea, marine environment and natural resources, contributing to the maritime development of that nation.

Chile requested the audit based on the opportunities and strengths of its structure. The diversity of maritime functions in this country is centralized only in one Administration (Directemar). This allows better coordination to prepare the audit and obtain compromise of subordinates. On other hand, Directemar has a vast amount of Directors and officers with experience in IMO issues and also ex-students of WMU. Another strength is that Flag State has a little fleet with only 33 ships that represents no more than one million of tonnage, however there are ships registered under open flags that exceed many times the National tonnage. In addition, Chile as Port State Control has signed two Memorandums of Understanding (Tokyo MOU and Viña del Mar MOU) so it guarantees a high level of control in foreign vessels.

The first measure taken by Directemar in order to prepare adequately the audit was the commitment in the highest level of the Maritime Administration and consequently the rest of organization through assignment of diffusion and responsibilities. For example, were performed courses of ISO 9000, 9001 and 14001 to personnel, was effected an Intern Audit with experienced professionals concluding in a series of prevent and corrective measures, was coordinated a visit in advance of OMI Leader Auditor to provide information about the Plan, scope and way that the Audit will be executed. Regarding to the norms, Maritime Administration developed an important computational application that show the norm of the code, legal validation in Chile, policy and provisions to be comply, register of action as evidence such as statistics, notify of the evidence to IMO and organism responsible for the implement and comply of the norm. This technological tool was widely praised by the audit team.

In order to avoid degradation in the usual functions of stable staff, the preparation of audit considered external consultants with experience and knowledge on international maritime instruments. They worked for a period of nine months and the main activities developed for them were collecting conventions, codes and resolutions according to the Code for the implementation of mandatory IMO Instruments 2007. Thus they could check updates and also verify the computational application that contained the 701 rules considered in the Code (A 25/8/3, 2007). At the end of the process was carried out the Internal Audit that showed as result measures make nine national technical directives and update two existing, modify International Safety certificates and analyse technical reports of 12 amendments pending of conventions for transaction in national legal procedure.

The physical places audited were Chilean Maritime Administration headquarters (Directemar), the Directorate of Maritime Safety, Security and Operations (Dirsomar) and Directorate of Maritime Interests and Aquatic Environment (Dirinmar). The inspection also considered the Hydrographical and Oceanographic Service (SHOA), Search and Rescue Centre (MRCC Chile), Marine protective environment Department, Maritime Instruction Centre (CIMAR) and Maritime Governor of Punta Arenas, Talcahuano and Valparaiso.

The costs by the State of the Audit basically involve the recruitment of specialist advisers, the visit of the leader auditor in advance, conducting ISO courses for 18 members of the Organization, conducting internal audit and transfer, stay and return of the IMO Audit team. Chile believes that costs to preparing and executing the audit represent an investment of the State to the future (A 25/8/3, 2007).

Finally, Directemar sent a complete document with information necessary about the proposition of tools and procedures to prepare this activity and highlight the benefit to the states and in general to the Organization. The suggestion of Chile to improve the Audit process considered the IMO liability to provide easy and timely access to the documentation of database by States.

Chile has achieved the status of successfully audited, the first country in the American continent and the sixth in worldwide.

Conclusion

When Administrations promulgate laws and regulations, not always take measures that may be necessary to give these instruments full and complete effect as well as ensure it. Examine practices and related procedures could be a valid assessment to establish the degree of compliance with standards and effectiveness in order to get an important feedback. It is a fact that Voluntary Audits have become an important measure against sub standards procedures as a result of inefficient implementing of IMO instruments. In addition, it has been able to extract various improvements and good ideas from States audited.

Due to Audits are voluntaries, it mean state have the freedom to decide if they take the process or not, it is complicate achieve the initial propose of ensure an efficient implement of regulations in the most of member states that they have not mentioned his intention to be audited so far. Moreover, if the audit would be mandatory, the resources could come from the Organization, benefiting countries with fewer resources and establish audits periodically.

The case of Directemar, as Maritime Administration of Chile, shows the importance of assign responsibilities inside of their organism to comply agreements, update relevant policies and in general improve measures which are taken to give effect to conventions and protocols accepted. Chile pioneered in to be audited and issued a comprehensive report, demonstrating that this Country, as a member of Council of IMO, has a permanent commitment with the International Maritime Community and with all measures that improves Maritime Safety and Environmental protection.

The results of audits are public and States can find several experiences from these processes in the official web site of IMO.