Unlicensed shipbuilders will be put out of business and boats that do not meet safety standards will be destroyed if waterway authorities get their way.

A traffic jam on Cho Gao Canal in Tien Giang Province would be managed under a new programme.

The Viet Nam Inland Waterway Agency, the Viet Nam Register Agency and the National Waterway Traffic Police Department have launched a programme, running from September 1 to October 15, to investigate boats and the places they were made.

According to the Waterway Agency’s statistics, a whopping 470,800 – or 91.3 per cent – of 515,600 ships and boats on inland waterways operate illegally, without registration. The law only requires registration for boats of more than five tonnes, five horse-power or five-person load capacity.

Waterway authorities said they have been failing to manage most ships between five and 15 tonnes, which accounted for 60 to 70 per cent of waterway accidents and are involved in 70 to 80 per cent of waterway deaths each year.

The investigation will inspect business licences, working conditions and equipment, the professional levels of technical staff, technical designs, and compliance with environmental standards and registration procedures.

“Most [boat builders] ignored the rules requiring collaboration with registration offices during their production process because they were employing untrained staff and producing ships without technical designs,” said Le Van Mao of the Viet Nam Inland Waterway Agency.

And ship owners are sneaky too, said Do Trung Hoc, director of the Viet Nam Register Agency’s river ship management department. For example, when authorities patrol docks and boathouses to make inspections, some ship owners hide themselves to avoid processing and registering them, Hoc said.

The agencies said local authorities sometimes looked the other way rather than managing their local ship-owners and – builders, who are mostly concentrated in coastal and canal-dense provinces like Quang Ninh, Nghe An, Ba Ria–Vung Tau, An Giang, Bac Lieu and Kien Giang.

Action plans would come at the end of the campaign, however, the waterway police department has concurred with the waterway agencies to shut down illegal facilities and to seize and destroy unsafe ships, said Le Van Mao, director of the agency’s legislation department.

VietNamNet/VNS