Dias Marine Consultants Co Ltd, our correspondents in Ukraine, has provided us with the following information:

Further to our latest reports on ballast problems in the Ukrainian ports (in particular concerning ecological inspectors’ activity) we would like to add that though luckily on the whole the ecological inspection’s practice of “racketeering” is gradually fading out we still hear of the corruption cases sadly regularly occurring in various ports of Ukraine. For example, just recently, on June 23, 2015, in Nikolaev port the ecological inspectors managed to hold a ship in the port.

We would like the shipowners to be informed that in no circumstances shall the masters allow ecological inspectors to board the vessel and shall not let them to check the ship’s IOPP certificate and other documents. All such check-ups are to be done by the Port State Control officers only and no one else.

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