The Maritime Safety Authority of Fiji (MSAF) has received approval from the Cabinet to review MSAF legislations.
MSAF chief executive officer Joeli Cawaki said part of the review would be to bring back the age of operating vessels to 20 years.
“There’s a lot of reasoning to that, bringing it back to 20 years because when the vessel gets older, there are environmental issues,” Mr Cawaki said.
“Also, the global movement now is to change the fuel-zero carbon, zero emissions. This is also coming to the shipping industry.”
Mr Cawaki said they were looking forward to funding in the upcoming budget to conduct a legislative review.
“We are working with the Ministry of Finance to give us money to hire a consultant.
“Or we do it in-house with the lawyers that we have, through the Solicitor General’s office.”
Mr Cawaki said they were also looking to introduce hefty fines in the new legislation.
“Suspending captains for three months, six months, and also putting up the fines.
“We would also like to see in the legislation that we need to also peg fines to (offending) the company, which is not happening now.
“But if the boat is damaged. It’s the fault of the driver, not the fault of the company.”
