Zanzibar Maritime Authority Director General Abdi Omar Maalim addresses
the media in Zanzibar yesterday
. PHOTO | MWINYI SADALLAH
In Summary
The development comes about a year after the
Zanzibar government was forced to cancel the registration of 36 Iranian
oil tankers that were registered through Philtex.
Zanzibar/Dar es Salaam. The Zanzibar government
said yesterday it will sue the owner of the ship that was seized off the
coast of Italy on Saturday with a drug cargo worth Sh125 billion on
board.
Zanzibar Marine Authority (ZMA) Director General
Abdi Omar Maalim, said attorneys were in the initial stages of filing a
suit against the company and nine crewmembers who were on board the MV
Gold Star when it was intercepted by Italian authorities.
He said the company owning the ship had violated
marine transport regulations that prohibited such vessels from ferrying
weapons, narcotics, illegal immigrants or any other illegal cargo.
Elsewhere, Director of Criminal Investigations
Robert Manumba said Italian authorities had yet to furnish their
Tanzanian counterparts with details of where the vessel was coming from
and the quantity of drugs it was carrying.
“Italian authorities are still investigating…we only know that the cargo was hashish,” Mr Manumba said.
Mr Maalim said the MV Gold Star was registered in
Zanzibar in 2011 through an agent of Dubai-based Philtex Corporation.
The firm is jointly owned by Americans and Filipinos. The company
entered into a ten-year contract with Zanzibar in 2007 to register
vessels in the isles.
Mr Maalim said it was agreed under the contract
that any party that would breach the contract in any way would be liable
to pay $500,000 (Sh800 million) in compensation. He added, however,
that it was too early to link Philtex with the 30 tonnes of cannabis
that were on board the MV Gold Star when it was seized in the
Mediterranean Sea.
“We don’t have such details as where the ship was
coming from and where it was going, but we are sure that the cargo did
not originate in Tanzania,” Mr Maalim said.
The development comes about a year after the
Zanzibar government was forced to cancel the registration of 36 Iranian
oil tankers that were registered through Philtex.
This was after a US Congress committee asked
President Barack Obama to consider punishing Tanzania for violating
international sanctions against Iran.
Some members of the House of Representatives said
during the 2013/14 budget sitting that there was no transparency in the
registration in Zanzibar of foreign-owned ships.
They said it was not known how much Zanzibar
earned from the deals, adding that some government officials channelled a
substantial chunk of the money into foreign bank accounts. The
lawmakers called for an audit of the accounts of the relevant agencies.
Zanzibar’s deputy minister for Infrastructure and Communication,
Mr Issa Haji Gavu, said yesterday that the contract between Philtex and
the government was “flawed” and would be reviewed next year.
“The attorney general (Othman Masoud Othman) has
been directed to review the contract before the government decides what
to do next,” he said.
He said ZMA was working closely with the Surface
and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (Sumatra) in Tanzania mainland
in various areas that are coordinated by the International Maritime
Organisation (IMO).
Italian customs officials intercepted the ship as
it sailed off the coast of Sicily, about 60 kilometres north of Malta,
following a tip-off that it was carrying a huge consignment of drugs.
Its destination could not be immediately established.
The nine people on board, said to be Egyptians and
Syrians, set fire to the ship and jumped overboard as they attempted to
avoid being arrested, but they were several kilometres from shore and
had to be plucked to safety.
A spokesman for Italian customs said: “The ship
was intercepted after intelligence was received that it was carrying
drugs, but we never expected such a huge consignment and for the crew to
set her on fire.
“The idea was no doubt to try and destroy the
evidence so that we could have no case against them but their plan
failed and the fire was put out and the drugs were found during the
search.
“Nine people on board jumped into the sea but they
couldn’t get very far as they were several miles from shore and they
had to be rescued by Italian customs officers.
source: The citizen
source: The citizen
