THE SAFETY of life and property at sea and the prevention of pollution of sea are the major missions of the South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) which has been launched by the department of transport.
Their activities will include surveys, detentions and prosecutions in respect of ship safety and oil pollution.
They will also manage marine incident casualties, wrecks and participation in search and rescue, with control of standby tugs and pollution stores.
The maintenance of seafarers together with standards of training and manning criteria will be under their care.
They will administer vessel traffic routing, navigation aids, safety net contract (with Telkom) and the radio/navigation system decommissioning contract (DECCA/LITTON).
They will also handle the registration of ships, the development of a national port authority and arrange the transfer of Portnet lighthouse services to their own authority.
Funding available to Samsa will derive from levies on ships calling at SA ports, direct user charges, a government service fee and government appropriation for year one and two. They will also earn indirectly from fines and penalties going to the maritime fund and contract administration fees.
The agency will be headed by Hilton Staniland, professor of maritime law at the University of Natal, with captain Brian Watt as c.e.o. Committee members are Pieter van Aswegen (Safmarine), Nonkululeko Godobo (c.e.o. Godobo Inc), Thulani Dlamini (ITF) and Okkert Grapow (retired).
Levies on ships will fund new maritime safety agency
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