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Auditors from 10 countries in Africa are attending a training course in Accra on how to improve safety and efficiency in shipping services in the region. The five-day course is being organised by the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) and is expected to build the capacity of the auditors to enforce the application of the newly introduced International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Audit Scheme on safety and security of ships. The IMO is the United Nations specialised agency for international shipping. Countries attending the course are Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, Kenya, Seychelles and Sao Tome and Principe. In her address at the opening ceremony yesterday, the Deputy Minister of Transport, Mrs Joyce A. B. Mogtari, said the objective of the IMO member state audit scheme was to ascertain the responsibilities of member states with respect to the implementation of the IMO instruments that they had ratified. The instruments are meant to ensure uniformity and prevent unilateral actions which could bring about unfair competition in world trade. Mrs Mogtari said the implementation and enforcement of the IMO instruments by member states was crucial in ensuring maritime safety, maritime security and the prevention and protection of the marine environment against vessel-source pollution. �The IMO can make brilliant conventions, codes and guidelines, but without their effective implementation and enforcement, all the brilliant work will not be meaningful,� she said. Mrs Mogtari suggested that the audit should not only dwell on physical enforcement of the instruments and the examination and certification of seafarers. Rather, she said, the audit should consider national laws and sanctions that had been put in place to implement the various IMO conventions, with the view to making recommendations towards improving them. Ghana Maritime Authority The Director-General of the GMA, Dr P.I. Azuma, said over the years, the IMO had adopted a number of international instruments which countries were expected to ratify and implement with the view to ensuring the application of global uniform standards that would eliminate sub-standard shipping and promote quality shipping operations. However, he said, the IMO had no enforcement and compliance monitoring role as the responsibilities were left to member states to discharge through the enactment and enforcement of national legislations. The Vice Chancellor of the Regional Maritime University (RMU), Prof. Elvis Nyarko, said audits in the shipping industry were not voluntary but mandatory, adding, �Member countries have no choice but to subject themselves to the audit schedules defined by IMO.�