THERE are no price controls on life jackets and flares at the moment, says Maritime Safety Authority of Fiji acting CEO John Tunidau.
However, he said the authority was working on making the safety items readily available for island communities.
“Currently, MSAF is making arrangements for life jackets at an affordable price to be made available at strategic locations for the rural and maritime communities,” Mr Tunidau said.
“We are negotiating with Post Fiji to be the distributors of safety equipment to those in the rural and maritime community.”
He said Cabinet had approved a tax exemption on foam material used for lifejackets, reducing cost when manufactured locally.
According to MSAF, life jackets along with necessary emergency safety equipment are mandatory for every vessel in the country.
Mr Tunidau said boat masters were also regulated to ensure those items were available on their vessels.
“Under the Ship Registration Decree, all boats must be surveyed and registered, and ship operators must be trained and qualified.
“With regards to training, MSAF has for the past 13 years embarked on awareness training of boat operators since 2002, especially for the rural and maritime communities for boat master’s licence and since the start of this year, for class 6 master/engineers restricted.
“MSAF is doing its best to ensure all operators and vessel owners adhere to the requirements through awareness training and mobile survey and registration team that have been travelling nationwide.”
He said so far there were a total of 1724 ships registered with the MSAF.
