‘SA should wake up to dangers of possible oil spill'

South Africa’s economy, tourism and local businesses would take a massive beating if we were to suffer a major oil disaster along any of our coastlines, and South Africa’s already overburdened tax payers would end up footing the bill for salvage and clean-up costs. This is according to Andrew Aubin of Aon South Africa. His warnings follow a shocking report aired on TV programme Carte Blanche recently regarding the state of the country’s readiness in the event of a major oil disaster in our seas. “Despite the fact that three of the biggest oil spill disasters in maritime history have taken place off South Africa’s coastline, authorities are failing to monitor the changing shipping environment and modify behaviour accordingly. They seem to have chosen a laissez faire approach to insurance covers, crisis management and response capacity when it comes to monitoring ships, particularly oil tankers in South African waters,” warns Aubin. The Carte Blanche exposé revealed that at most South Africa would be able to recover R180m from traditional insurance markets in the event of a disastrous oil spill. The truth is that because South Africa has not updated its legislation for the past 12 years, local oil companies aren’t paying the 3c on every ton of the oil they import to the International Fund, the insurance fund to which the world’s major oil companies contribute. And, like all insurance premiums, if we don’t pay our levies we can’t claim. “The reality is that South Africa lies on one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Rough seas, an ageing world tanker fleet, human error and deliberate discharge make oil pollution a real threat around our coasts. We simply cannot sit back and naively think that the ships using our waters are properly insured, if at all, or are in a reasonable state of repair and maintenance. The truth is that many of these ships come from very questionable origins with owners who have little regard for the law or the implications for anyone else of their wrong-doing,” he says. “If there was a cataclysmic oil spill right now we would be seriously compromised as we could not claim from the International Fund since our oil companies are not contributing to it. Our fragile economy would most likely never recover from such a disaster, and our coastal environment as a major source of tourism income would be left in tatters,” warns Aubin. INSERT ‘Authorities are failing to monitor the changing shipping environment and modify behaviour accordingly.’ CAPTION Andrew Aubin ... ‘South Africa has not updated its legislation for the past 12 years.’