Senior maritime administrators from seven Caribbean countries completed a regional workshop in preparation for forthcoming audits under the IMO Member State Audit Scheme (IMSAS).
The workshop took place in Kingston, Jamaica (8-12 April), organized by IMO and the Maritime Authority of Jamaica, as host country.
In total, 23 participants from Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago gained the knowledge and skills required to undergo IMO's mandatory audit and post-audit activities. Most of the participating countries will be undergoing audits in 2024 and 2025.
The audit scheme aims to provide a comprehensive and objective assessment of how effectively a State is applying certain fundamental IMO treaties relating to safety, marine protection and seafarer training.
The workshop focused on enhancing the capacity, capability and effectiveness of maritime administrations in implementing and enforcing provisions of mandatory IMO instruments and the IMO Instruments Implementation Code (III Code).
Maritime administrators received guidance for the preparation and conduct of audits under IMSAS, as well as the development of corrective action plans where needed. They addressed actions to identify and eliminate the root causes of findings or observation in an audit in order to prevent their recurrence.
All IMO Member States are required to undergo a mandatory audit within the seven-year audit cycle. Up to 25 Member State audits per year are expected to be audited under the Scheme. To date, 120 audits have been conducted under IMSAS since the Scheme became mandatory in January 2016.
