Control Risks Maritime Security Services is authorised by the Panama Maritime Authority as a Private Maritime Security Company (PMSC). Control Risks adds that it was authorised ahead of the October 3 deadline to provide privately contracted armed security personnel on board Panamanian flagged vessels transiting the High Risk Area, in line with Resolution No.106-13-DGMM of March, 2012.
London-based Control Risks was one of the first eight companies to pass Stage 1 of the SAMI Certification Standard and be awarded Industry Membership. It has also completed the Gray Page vetting process for the North of England P&I Club.
Tim Stear, Director of Maritime Security for Control Risks said: “We are delighted to have been authorised by the Panama Maritime Authority. We believe industry standards play a critical role in helping drive consistently high levels of service and professionalism in the maritime security sector.”
“Whilst this applies to Panama flagged vessels only, it is a stringent technical audit of Control Risks’ standards against IMO guidelines by one of the leading authorities. Together with similar accreditations with SAMI and Grey Page, our authorisation by the Panama Maritime Authority demonstrates Control Risks’ compliance with and continued support for industry standards.”
Control Risks adds that it has provided over 400 transits, 3,000 transit days and nearly 12,000 man days of transit security support to numerous clients and vessel natures on a variety of routes, without incident, accident or failure to compete a task.
Meanwhile in September, a ceremony attended by senior US and Japanese diplomats, Tanzanian Government officials and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the IMO (the International Maritime Organization, an United Nations agency) for Maritime Security and Anti-Piracy Programmes, Hartmut Hesse, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania marked the completion of the installation of an integrated radar and automatic identification system (AIS) coastal surveillance system in Tanzania.
IMO, with the Governments of the United Republic of Tanzania and the United States of America, has spent the last 12 months delivering this system which provides a coastal picture to both the Tanzanian Peoples’ Defence Forces as well as the civilian authorities at the Dar es Salaam Maritime Rescue Sub-Centre and the integral Information Sharing Centre.
Conceived as a bi-lateral military project between the United States and Tanzania, IMO joined the project to integrate the system for civil and maritime law-enforcement use in order to bring all maritime agencies together to counter the maritime security threats such as piracy that threaten the coast of Tanzania.
The ceremony marks the completion of the first phase of a wider effort to provide similar systems in States bordering the Mozambique Channel and its approaches, and the work is being undertaken as part of the IMO’s counter-piracy work under the Djibouti Code of Conduct funded by contributions to the Djibouti Code Trust Fund from its donors: France, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia and The Marshall Islands.
