23 August 2005
Nairobi — Kenya is in danger of oil spill disasters from single hull ships that call at Mombasa port with large quantities of oil cargo.
Paul Musili a maritime law lecturer at Nairobi University told The EastAfrican that a revised schedule for the phasing out of single-hull tankers and a new regulation banning carrying of heavy grade oil in single-hull oil tankers entered into force on April 5, yet Kenya still allows in the ships.
"The measures were adopted in December 2003 as amendments to Annex I of the MARPOL Convention, following the November 2002 sinking of the oil tanker Prestige off the Spanish coast," he said. "It specifies that tankers of single-hull construction should be phased out or converted into double-hull according to a schedule based on their year of delivery."
Current maritime laws require the ship owner to pay a paltry Ksh10,000 ($129) in case of an oil spill, maritime experts say.
Last weekend, a single hull ship, mv Genmar Commander, carrying 87,000 tonnes of crude oil offloaded its cargo at Mombasa Port despite calls by environmentalists and maritime lawyers to have the vessel barred from entering Kenyan waters.
Another ship mv Ratna Shalini had its hull punctured, spilling oil into the Kenyan waters early this year. Compensation is yet to be paid because Kenya has no laws to force the ship owners to pay the claim. The owners committed a bond of Ksh78 million ($1 million) which the company is yet to pay.
The double-hull requirements for oil tankers are designed to reduce the risk of oil spills from tankers involved in low energy collisions or grounding, Mr Musili explained.
Under the phase-out schedule, "Category 1" single hull oil tankers will not be allowed to trade after April 5, ships delivered on or before April 5, 1982 or earlier or after their anniversary date in 2005.
"Category 1" are oil tankers, commonly known as Pre-MARPOL tankers of 20,000 tonnes deadweight and above carrying crude oil, fuel oil, heavy diesel oil or lubricating oil as cargo. This category also includes tankers of 30,000 tonnes deadweight and above carrying other oils, which do not comply with the requirements for protectively located segregated ballast tanks.
"Category 2" oil tankers, which have some level of protection from protectively located segregated ballast tank requirements, will be phased out according to their age up to 2010.
Mr Musili said the government, through the office of the Attorney General, was yet to enact the Marine Pollution Bill, as recommended by a taskforce on the Review of Maritime Laws. The Bill is a comprehensive legislation to domesticate international conventions dealing with marine pollution.
He suggested that a coast guard service be set up as an operational wing of the Kenya Navy, which would strengthen the existing enforcement measures by, for instance, stopping risk-bearing vessels from docking at the ports.
Mr Musili urged the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) to enforce the existing law in order to prevent the marine environmental degradation.
Unless this is done, we can expect many more single-hull oil tankers to dock at our ports with impunity, endangering our marine environment," he said.
However, KMA officials said that there was no cause for alarm. "Whoever contracted the ship could not risk millions of dollars worth of oil to an unseaworthy ship," said the acting director general, Captain Fred Wahutu.
He added that Genmar Commander was well within the international laws. "The IMO [International Maritime Organisation] has given out a phasing out period to 2015 that the vessels should not be in use," he told The EastAfrican.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2005 The East African. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
