The Inquirer (Monrovia)
5 March 2008
The attention of the Bureau of Maritime Affairs (BMA) is drawn to a press statement which appeared in Vol. 12 No. 13 of March 3, 2008 of the National Chronicle Newspaper attributed to LISCR which alleges among other things that during the fiscal year 2007 the government of Liberia through the BMA received the amount of US$70 million in revenue from LISCR. The statement also noted that the amount of ships now flying the Liberian flag has increased to 2,700 ships with an aggregate gross tonnage of 82,165,902.
The BMA says while the steady growth in the number of ships in the Liberian Registry is a consequence of increased confidence complemented by an excellent managerial initiative, it is, however, taken aback about the gross misrepresentation of the number of ships as well as the actual amount of revenue generated for the fiscal period January 1-December 31, 2007.
The BMA clarifies that as at December 32, 2007, the number of ships flying the Liberian flag was 2,664 and the amount remitted to GOL during the same period was US$13.15m exclusive of US$4,038,000m for the Nautical Training, Liberia Marine Training Institute, the Operation of the Permanent Maritime Representative Office in London, the Operation of the Office of Deputy Commissioner for Financial Affairs in Reston Virginia, USA, and contributions to the Red Sea Light among others.
The BMA says there are statistics and financial records to substantiate this. Concluding, the Bureau would like to see any record to the contrary if this was not a serious error on the part of the reporter.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Inquirer. 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.
