On April 26, the Maritime Committee met at the office of TORM to discuss recent developments in their initiatives and industry. The Committee discussed challenges and limitations encountered in the Training Center Audit. The conflict of schedules between the training center audit date and availability of auditors was highlighted in the discussion. In response, the Committee is eyeing to map the schedules of audit for the year and list down additional auditors for the initiative.
In term of Audit findings, the general observation is that there are still a lot to improve on for these training centers; such as: competencies of instructors, feedback mechanism, and the prevalence of absenteeism among training participants. Cognizant of this concerns, the committee was informed that Marina has been active in addressing the issue on lackluster training centers. The agency shall be publishing a white list of training centers by the end of May.
Recent experiences with Port State Authorities (PSA) was also raised during the meeting. Acknowledging that this has been an ongoing concern in the industry, the committee is looking into creating a small working group to discuss best practices in relations to PSAs.