The Hong Kong Branches of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers (ICS) and the Nautical Institute have co-organized a webinar on ‘Maritime Corruption: Global Action Needed’.
The event was organized on May 16, 2023, and it was moderated by Kaushik Roy and participated by panelists including Capt. Brendon Hawley, Board Member · The Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN), Deepak Shetty I.R.S. (Retd), Sr. Advisor MACN Maritime Transport & Crime Expert. · MACN, Sanjay Mavinkurve, Head of HSEQ/ DPA · Hafnia BW, and Jillian Carson-Jackson, Managing Director, JCJ Consulting and Ex-President Nautical Institute.
At the very outset, Jagmeet Makkar introduced the panelists and the moderator of the webinar.
Capt. Brendon Hawley in his initial presentation explained about the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) and how it is working towards the vision of a maritime industry free of corruption that enables fair trade to the benefit of society at large. He said that MACN was established in 2011 and comprises shipping companies and others associated with the maritime industry. It currently has about 185 members across the world and about 50% of the global tonnage is operated by its members. Hawley said thatMACN believes in working for three Cs including collective action, capability building, and collaboration.
Hawley explained MACN incident reporting and in-country collective action and how collaboration has been brought about by roping in several associations in the field of maritime trade including ICS, BIMCO, WMU, ITF, IAPH, IG, P&I, INTERTANKO to set the agenda for maritime corruption at IMO.
Due to MACN’s efforts, IMO developed guidelines for maritime corruption in 2020, and in May 2022 IMO Facilitation Committee (FAL) at the 46th session approved guidelines to implement procedures against maritime corruption.
Deepak Shetty in his presentation introduced how MACN-India has been making efforts to reach out to the maritime industry to bring about awareness with regard to maritime corruption and to resolve the pain points by addressing them at proper forums. He listed out various stakeholders engaged with by MACN-India. He also explained various events and outreach activities for their visibility. He also elaborated on the engagements with chairpersons of Port authorities, the Indian Ports Association (IPA), Indian G20 Sherpa, and members of GST, CBIT and Customs, Information Technology and Vigilance, meeting with various major port authorities and DG Shipping.
Deepak has also explained proposals submitted to the Govt of India for public policy change to bring about smooth and corruption-free maritime trade. The Director General of Shipping has accepted some of the proposals related to IMO FAL and Port clearance by Customs referred to in section 410 of the Indian Merchant Shipping Act 1958, he added. He said that MACN-India has received a total of 219 PANs related to Indian ports so far and 11 incidents have already been addressed satisfactorily.
While responding to the work environment culture and women parity in the maritime sector Ms Jillian Jackson said thatthere needs to be more social acceptance when it comes to report against corruption in the maritime sector or gender-related matters. Mr Sanjay Mavinkurve in his opinion said that to combat corruption there needs to be more training sessions for masters which can help combat it successfully. He said there can’t be any shortcut methods to combat corruption and he and his company deals with such menace through non cash dealings and other systems through set processes.
