‘Review Bill to include maritime authority’

DAILY NEWS Reporters

THE Maritime Law Association of Tanzania (MLAT) has requested the government to review the Bill for enactment of the National Shipping Agencies Act to accommodate the establishment of Tanzania Maritime Authority (TMA) to regulate maritime affairs and activities in the country.

Such Bill on the Maritime Transport Sector, according to MLAT Chairman Prof Costa Mahalu at a press conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday, is due to be submitted for debate by the Attorney General (AG) to the forthcoming Parliamentary session, which kicks off early this month.

It seeks to establish a National Shipping Agencies Corporation (NASAC), which is a public corporation and a business organisation that would, at the same time, be vested with powers to regulate the Maritime Transport Sector in Tanzania.

Prof Mahalu pointed out that the established TMA would have major objectives and functions, notably to monitor, regulate and coordinate activities in the maritime industry and have the responsibility to implement the provisions of enactments on shipping.

The seasoned mariner and maritime law expert, Capt Ibrahim Bendera, the MLAT boss, recalled that after the sinking of MV Bukoba in 1996 the Union Government formed a committee, whose members were from both sides of the union to look into possibility of establishing a National Maritime Safety Agency.

According to him, the proposed Bill in its sections attempt to resolve complex issues by indicating the application of the Proposed Act, but it is noted that that law would only apply to shipping services at the sea ports and inland waterways ports in the Mainland Tanzania alone.

Meanwhile, stakeholders in the shipping industry have welcomed the proposed draft legislation, the National Shipping Agencies Act 2017, but proposed some few amendments in the law that seeks to among other things, control shipping agencies, ports and shipping services at sea ports and inland waterways ports in the country.

The stakeholders convened in Dodoma, yesterday, to air their views on the proposed draft law before a parliamentary Standing Committee on Infrastructure, led by committee chairman, Professor Norman Sigalla.

The Minister for Works, Transport and Communication, Prof Makame Mbarawa, is expected to table the proposed draft law in Parliament for the second reading in the next parliamentary session.

However, in their views yesterday, all stakeholders were opposed to the establishment of NASAC saying that in the law, the latter was given the mandate as an operator and a regulator, something that was likely to create a conflict of interest.

Instead, they proposed that the law should provide for the establishment of the National Maritime Authority that will have full mandate to be prefect of all the shipping agents including the State owned.