South African Sets to Get New Merchant Shipping Act

South Africa last week made move towards enthroning a new set of  laws to govern the country’s sprawling maritime  industry.
Already, the country’s Transport Minister, Sibusiso Ndebele has started mounting pressure on the National Assembly to pass the Bill.
According to him, the Merchant Shipping (Safe Containers Convention) Bill 2010 will assist South Africa carry out its obligation to maintain the highest standards with regards to the safe carriage of containers over the country’s water.

South Africa last week made move towards enthroning a new set of  laws to govern the country’s sprawling maritime  industry.
Already, the country’s Transport Minister, Sibusiso Ndebele has started mounting pressure on the National Assembly to pass the Bill.
According to him, the Merchant Shipping (Safe Containers Convention) Bill 2010 will assist South Africa carry out its obligation to maintain the highest standards with regards to the safe carriage of containers over the country’s water.
The minister said a major part of world trade depended on South Africa’s coastal waters and that 98 percent of the country’s trade was seaborne.
Key provisiobs of the bill are :The requirements for the approval, repair, inspection, detention and disposal of containers, prescribing minimum size for containers, especially for carriage by sea excluding air freight, and setting out procedures for the safety approval by an Administration of a Contracting State or by organisation acting on its behalf, of containers used in international transport.
The administration and enforcement of the proposed law are entrusted to the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA);  the equivalent of Nigeria’s  NIMASA.
Ndebele said the Bill gave effect to the International Convention for Safe Containers as adopted by countries belonging to the International Maritime Organisation.
“The Convention entered into force in December 1977, setting international standards for the safe carriage of containers throughout the world.
“Since its adoption in 1972, maritime countries were expected to ratify the Convention by passing relevant legislation through their national Parliaments and Cabinets, which would enable the application and enforcement of provisions of the Convention,” he noted.
As part of the process to ratify this Convention, a law known as International Convention for Safe Containers Act, was passed in 1985 through the Department of Trade and Industry.
“This Bill therefore proposes to reassign functions related to the implementation and administration of the Convention from the Minister and the Department of Trade and Industry to the Minister of Transport and the South African Maritime Safety Authority,” Ndebele explained.
Doing so would ensure that the necessary functions were assigned to appropriate authorities that had the responsibility for transport and related safety matters, he said.