Philtex will in the near future, no longer be Zanzibar’s agent for registering international ships, the Minister for Infrastructure and Communication, Mr Rashid Seif Suleiman informed the House of Representatives.
The Minister for Infrastructure and Communication, Mr Rashid Seif Suleiman.
“We are now in the process of breaking the contract with Philtex. Soon the company will no longer be our registrar for international ships,” said Rashid when responding to furious backbenchers who demanded to know how the government has been benefiting from Philtex.
He said that Philtex’s unconvincing deals of registering Iranian tankers contrary to the EU/US led sanctions on Iran’s contested nuclear programme. PHILTEX Corporation Ltd is a United Arab Emirates company in Dubai – Deira, belonging to Ship Management & Registration industry.
The minister said: “We signed an agreement with Philtex in 2007, registering about 406 ships. But 60 ships have cancelled their registration with Zanzibar, 159 ships sold and we have deregistered 33 Iranian Oil tankers.”
He said Zanzibar has 179 ships in its register ‘honestly’ paying annual fee to the Zanzibar Maritime Authority (ZMA), USD 150 for ships with tonnage not less than 459 and 10,000 tones paying USD 1,200.
Last Thursday the Zanzibar Maritime Authority (ZMA) Director, Mr Abdi Maalim, said that in response to recent allegations that some Iranian tankers have been detected using Tanzanian identification codes, Zanzibar has asked all port authorities around the world to take stern measures against them.
It has been reported that despite Zanzibar deregistering the tankers, at least three ships owned by the NITC have started emitting a wireless number starting with ‘677?’ the country code signalling a Tanzanian flag, according to shipping databases Marine Traffic and Fleetmon.
The code can be used, for example, to give a distress signal. The vessels are also using a call sign – a unique identifier given by flag registration authorities – with a prefix that corresponds to the African country. “I have written to our main urgent in Dubai ‘Philtex’ asking to be watchful.
“We have also sent letters containing the identification of all Iranian tankers of which we broke the contract with to some international ports so that they help us control misuse of our identity,” said Maalim. He said that his office has also written a letter of complaint to the Iran authorities in a bid to make sure that their ships do not use Tanzania flags or signal code.
“We are very concerned because it was Zanzibar which registered the ships,” he added. Iran is being isolated in business as part of sanctions imposed by the EU/ US in response to the Islamic Republic’s contested nuclear programme.
By ISSA YUSSUF, Tanzania Daily News
