Goundar Shipping Ltd has threatened to withdraw its maritime shipping services if their imported high-speed ferry, Captain Inoke is not approved and registered to operate in Fiji.
Maritime Safety Authority of Fiji (MSAF) CEO Joeli Cawaki confirmed this to the media yesterday.
“A letter has already gone to him, he’s been calling us now saying I’m going to withdraw my vessels because you are not accommodating,” Mr Cawaki said.
“But for us, that’s the technicality of it?
“Because this boat, when it came from Korea to here, what we’ve seen, there are cracks in the aluminium.”
Mr Cawaki said more than 20 cracks were found in the hull of the vessel and fixed by a Navua boat building company “Blue Water”.
“They looked at the cracks and fixed the cracks in the hull.
“I’ve been told there were more than 20 cracks.”
He also revealed that the vessel is 27 years old.
“If it’s to carry our people, we have to be mindful of the safety.
“So, once he satisfies those four conditions, then we’ll sit down again with him and come up with a survey schedule that is different from the other vessels, because it’s aluminium, and because of its speed.
Now, with this legislation review, we are now working on putting Fiji into the High-Speed Craft Code, to domesticate that code so that we can enforce in Fiji.
“So, once that code is domesticated, then we’ll have to train our people for high-speed craft.”
Attempts to get comments from Gounder Shipping Ltd remained futile when this edition went to press.
