He assured that questions recently raised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on whether or not the BMA allows ship owners anonymity, were not areas of concern for the BMA.
A study conducted by the OECD in March, 2003 concluded that it was cheap and easy to establish a complex web of corporate entities to hide the identities of beneficial owners of vessels. The study noted that open registers were prime targets for beneficial owners wishing to hide their identities. In this study The Bahamas was listed as one of the registries whose registration requirements could facilitate secretiveness.
However, Mr. McKinney assured, “Our register is as open in terms of the ownership as any other traditional register; and so if an issue comes of it we believe that we will be able to withstand an assault in that capacity.”
Addressing the 13th Annual Business Outlook Conference on the “Outlook for the Bahamas Maritime Authority”, Mr. McKinney said that The Bahamas’ ship registry could grow to the second largest open registry in the world and become a lucrative source of employment for Bahamians.
The BMA, established in 1995 is presently the third largest open registry in the world with the largest cruise ship register and the second largest register of tankers.
Mr. McKinney predicted that with the increase of members the registry would be in a position to offer more direct employment at the registry’s offices located in London, New York and Nassau.
According to Mr. McKinney, there are also employment opportunities available for Bahamians on the vessels using the Bahamas’ registry.
“The Bahamas has been very slow to take up opportunities that are available to us with respect to the number of vessels that use our register,” he said.
He speculated that the reasons for this could be that even though The Bahamas is a nation made up of more sea than land, Bahamians have not taken seafaring as seriously as they should.
He continued that while the initial aim of the registry was to increase revenue through the number of vessels on the register, “we were missing a very significant career path that Bahamians could follow.”
Recognizing the maritime industry as a potentially lucrative employment option for Bahamians, the BMA chairman revealed that his organisation, along with The Bahamas Ship Owners Association (BSA) has embarked on a plan to introduce more Bahamians to the shipping industry.
Mr. McKinney noted while all the jobs within the shipping industry may not be ones that Bahamians may want to take, as they tend to shy away from menial jobs, the ship owners and the BMA through providing scholarships for Bahamians to receive maritime training, hoped that more Bahamians would become qualified to take on higher level jobs.
“We should be saying to our students in the schools, ‘Listen, we are a seafaring nation and we have opportunities out there that you can take up’,” he said.
Mr. McKinney said that the BMA, which currently has 1,500 vessels on its registry was just behind Panama and Liberia, and in its quest to become the second largest open registry in the world, the BMA will continue its mandate of maintaining a register of quality.
“We have and will continue to maintain a register of quality. We’re branded as a quality register; we’re respected internationally as a quality register and we maintain that the only way that we can do so is if we are very selective in the age of the ships that we register and the types of owners that we bring to our register.”
According to Mr. McKinney the best way for the BMA to maintain its quality title is to retain the amicable relationships that the registry has with its ship owners.
To do this, he added, the registry has to support an aggressive stance on going to the scene of incidents involving ships on the BMA’s registry.
“Anytime a ship is arrested or a ship is detained for one reason or the other we are active and we are there,” Mr. McKinney said. “We do not take the sit-back and wait-and- see approach. We go out and we try to find ways of assisting our owners. By doing this they have become very comfortable in knowing that they have the register coming to deal with issues on their behalf; they are not left to deal with governments on their own. We are looking out for them.”
Mr. McKinney also suggested that the BMA expand its operation to include a yacht registry, which he predicted would generate even more revenue and career opportunities for Bahamians.
“In the past we would register only the big vessel tankers, clippers, cruise ships, bulk carriers. We now feel that probably we ought to be looking at a yacht registry. There is no reason why we shouldn’t; we have all the facilities already in place.”
By Martella Matthews, The Nassau Guardian
