Panama Scrutinizes Inspectors and ROs as Part of Registry Cleanup

Panama has released new details of its program to clean up its fleet, including efforts to bring up the quality standards of its recognized organizations and inspectors. 

Prompted by the downgrading of its flag to the "gray list" of the Paris MOU, Panama has embarked on a mission to improve its port state control performance, and it has described the effort as a "paramount issue." The changes include tightening scrutiny of new applicants to the flag, attracting more newly-built ships, rejecting ships over 30 years of age, evaluating the quality of older legacy tonnage, and high-grading the fleet, as announced last week. Panama is also taking the step of cracking down on sanctions-busting and illegal fishing.

But in a new statement released Wednesday, the Panama Maritime Authority added that it is going a step beyond the examination of its clients and their tonnage. It is also looking closely at the quality of oversight provided by its recognized organizations and inspectors. 

According to the flag administration, it has picked up a trend of high levels of deficiencies and detentions for ships with valid documents from certain ROs. Panama has audited these ROs, and some have been suspended. Revocation of their status is a possibility going forward. 

Panama has also picked up on issues with flag state inspections carried out by some of its approved inspectors. In some of these cases, the inspector never attended the ship and carried out the task remotely, without approval from the flag state. So far, Panama has suspended three inspectors for poor performance, and 14 more are in the process of suspension. An additional nine have been canceled from the approved inspection list altogether.