AFTER six years, the central provincial government has for the first time appointed board members to implement the Small Craft Act at the provincial level.
The board members will work to ensure every boats from 3- 10 meters that operates in the waters of Central province are registered.
The board members will be officially sworn in on Tuesday June 15, 2021 at Loloata resort followed by a workshop and trainings to equip the board members for the job.
Acting deputy provincial administrator for Central Glen Gabi Gani said the provincial government has been working on setting this for the past years and is now in place.
This was announce in the presence of National Maritime Safety Authority Small (NMSA) Craft Act implementation program coordinator Ismael Kawi and NMSA officer responsible for Southern region Sylvia Kivali.
Kawi said the Small Craft Act came to effect since 2015 in 15 maritime provinces but it took a while to be implemented in Central province.
“We are happy that they (Central province) have now come to a stage where they have a board in place and we would like to see that process complete by having the induction and swearing in of the board members and the training for the inspectors.
He added that the responsibility to implement the Small Craft Act lies with the 15 maritime provinces including the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
The requirements of the Acts states that the maritime provinces must have a board of five members and a registry office where registration of boats can be facilitated to fully implement the Act.
As per the Act the NMSA has set a maximum payable registration fee of not more than K240 that must be paid is valid for three years and licensing for a period of one year.
The boats can be licensed under four different categories that the craft can be used for. A boat can be registered under “Passengers” to transport passengers, “Mixed Use” for other purposes and “Cargo” to transport cargo only or “Fishing” for fishing purposes only. Registration fees for different uses as set by the NMSA are K250 for Mixed Use and Passenger is K250 and for Fishing and Cargo is K150.00.
The provincial board members of Small Craft Act are entitled for the determination of fees, however it must not go over the NMSA set fees as stated. All the fees collected are for the province and not the NMSA.
Now that Central province has established its provincial board members to implement Small craft Act, Gulf and Madang are the only provinces yet to establish their Small Craft Act provincial board.