Shipping companies under close watch
SHIPPING companies and commercial passenger vessels will be strictly monitored by the Maritime Safety Authority of Fiji as it cracks down on the transportation of illicit drugs.
MSAF chief executive officer Joeli Cawaki said these companies could face deregistration and criminal charges if they were found to be involved in the drug trade.
“One thing we have to do as the authority for our maritime industry is to ensure that there is compliance,” said Mr Cawaki.
“If there is non-compliance then obviously they will be given a warning but if they are involved in this emerging problem (drug trade) that we have on our hands then that is a different story.
“We do not want them to be engaged at all in these types of activities. If they are then they will be dealt with the full brunt of the law.”
Mr Cawaki said MSAF would deploy all of its available resources to assist other border security agencies in monitoring vessels and also assist in investigations.
“At the moment we have our work cut out but we are trying to catch up.
“There are programs in place that we want to do like legislative reviews to strengthen our capabilities and apart from that we are working alongside our border security agencies like the Police and the Navy.”
Mr Cawaki confirmed that they had provided information to police during its investigations in the recent Nadi drug bust.
“There was a barge involved and we had police investigators visit us and where we had given information such as the registration number of the barge and the people that worked on it.”