PORT state control (PSC) has reduced accidents and improved safety on board ships, but there is a lot of room for improvement in how PSC inspections are carried out and their outcomes reported, believes Alfonso Castillero, CEO of the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry (LISCR).

In this podcast, he says there is a lack of uniformity in the qualifications and performance of PSC inspectors across the globe and expresses concern that “there is no clarity” over how vessels are inspected. He is also critical of how defects are recorded and dealt with, causing adverse impacts on shipowners and other stakeholders associated with a ship.

During the podcast, he stresses that LISCR has good co-operation with PSC regimes around the world and says that there are many excellent PSC officers but, nonetheless, he finds that there are “different interpretations of the rules” in the different port state control areas that a vessel may visit during a voyage. “There is a lot of room for improvement,” he said, and he believes that many others share his concerns but that they “prefer to stay quiet” to avoid “friction points with port state control”.

He took the opportunity to explain why a single ship might receive different outcomes in different PSC regimes, with factors including the background, experience and qualifications of individual inspectors, leading to different deficiencies being found and differing interpretations of the seriousness of those deficiencies.

In particular, he highlighted differences between how deficiencies that require action to be taken are categorised. IMO’s publication Procedures for Port State Control identifies a number of “code” numbers that can be noted on an inspection report as shorthand to indicate the required response, and Castillero is particularly vocal about two of them: “Code 17”, which identifies deficiencies that need to be addressed before a ship can depart from a port, and “Code 30”, which highlights deficiencies that require a ship to be detained.

Both have the same effect in practice, he said, but a Code 30 detention creates an adverse record not only for the ship, but also its owner, flag, class society and others, he says in the podcast.

He goes on to suggest some solutions to the problems he has identified, setting out some proposals about how the international co-operation that would be required could be coordinated. The benefits would be significant, he believes, not least for crews who have to navigate the various PSC regimes and their inspection procedures.

He also believes that LISCR’s size puts it in a position “to initiate a conversation with port state and flag state control to find a possible point of understanding” to start the discussion that would be needed to achieve this co-operation. “The Liberian registry has been globally recognised for taking the initiative,” he said.