Watch An IMO ‘Expert’ Give Mauritius The Worst Advice Ever
In the August 23rd video Forbes published, Matthew Sommerville said “There is lots of offers of equipment from overseas, there are lots of offers of expertise from many nations which want to help. But we don’t want to overload the country [Mauritius]…”
Degnarain writes that he finds this statement odd to make “This is an odd statement to make in a country that previously had a prominent, female biodiversity scientist as President, Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, and who has been calling out for greater international support in particular areas of biodiversity protection for the past few weeks.”
According to Forbes, this includes technology companies – like blkSAIL,. Windward, and Geollect – who can analyze satellite data remotely and autonomous oil monitoring vessels – like Saildrone and blkSAIL – which require few operators.
“Some of the latest oil spill detection technologies had been offered to Mauritius for the past 43 days”, says Degnarain. “Yet there has still been no response from the Mauritian authorities… Questions are now being asked whether it is the International Maritime Organization (IMO) who is preventing this technology from being deployed in Mauritius.”
That was last week. This week a new video has emerged where Sommerville makes numerous eye-opening statements like “We are working with the shipowner to get boots on the ground but they are reluctant.” And, addresses serious health concerns by saying “Everyone is worried about VOCs (for health reasons) but they still go to their petrol station and fill up.” And, in a statement where he claims to have been handling oil with his bare hands “for thirty years,” he boasts “If someone was going to get cancer it would be me.”
Matt Sommerville is Chairman of The Insititute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology’s (IMarEST) Marine Pollution Special Interest Group and secretary of the International Spill Control Organization (ISCO) and industry non-profit based in London. According to ISCO’s website that organization has “consultative status at IMO” and “through involvement in IMO, ISCO alerts the spill response community on new developments, some of which present opportunities for ISCO members.”
Taken at face value this suggests that ISCO’s primary interest is representing its members in IMO and helping them get contracts to clean up oil spills. So why is Sommerville claiming to speak for the IMO and UN? Is it possible that he’s blocking the deployment of technology because the above-mentioned tech companies are not members of ISCO?
We don’t have that answer.
We do know that the video claims he is a “UN Expert” and the “Claim & Private Sector Coordinator” for the oil spill.
Summerville does not mention under who’s authority at the IMO he is working but he does repeatedly claim that the owner of the M/V Wakashio is the person responsible for cleanup efforts.
But why isn’t a shipowner or P&I Club representative on hand to answer questions? According to Sommerville there aren’t many owner or P&I representatives in Mauritius right now but they are working to get them here.
This is highly concerning. As is usually the case in high profile incidents, local authorities have arrested the Captain but, as is also the case, no warrants have been issued to the ship owner or crewing managers.
This is important because incident theory tells us that groundings are not singular events, they occur at the end of a series of problems over many years. And, more often than not, those problems are systemic and almost always include poor ownership and management decisions.
If the shipowner refuses to send representatives to Mauritius then they could have issued warrants and enacted extradition treaties against management before arresting the crew.
The following are some highlights of the town hall video which our shipping expert – who has extensive experience working with the IMO,a nd wishes to remain anonymous – claims contain statements that are “ridiculous”.
gCaptain
