The issue of lack of accountability, transparency and business integrity is a given reality that amounts to corruption in the Maritime industry. MACN (Maritime Anti-Corruption Network), which works with a vision to create a corruption-free Maritime and Shipping Industry, organized a one-day conference in Mumbai on the 27^th July.

Addressing the gathering, Mr Deepak Shetty I.R.S, Former Secretary to Government of India & Director General of Shipping, Current Adviser (India) MACN, unveiled what MACN stands for, showcasing its philosophy, strategies, best practices, helpdesk facility, and capacity-building tools, to fight corruption in India and globally.

Mr. Shetty said, “MACN is a platform for all the Marine and Shipping industry stakeholders, along with the government entities to collaborate and find solutions towards good governance, which will in-turn help deal with the issues of corruption.

“Recognized by the International Maritime organization (IMO), MACN is known for the Reporting of Corruption and Bribery in the Maritime domain and specifically on the seaside.”

Mr. Shetty appealed to the entire international ecosystem to unite in leveraging sustainable partnerships between the stakeholders to fight corruption. He said, “MACN intends to capture corruption incidents on the sea side and will eventually expand to the shore side in the near future. For now, on the sea side we would be receiving PAN (Pre-Arrival Notification Systems), which will be lodged in MACN’s systems.

“We have established Help Desks in India, wherein Captain Raymond Shroff has been appointed as the Help Desk in charge. This will help in creating an alert about any incident of corruption on any given vessel, across ports in the country. We will monitor the interface of any ship’s crew with the ports, vessels and other ships, and even port inspectors.

“Once the information is captured, we will follow the case with emails to maintain records for greater accountability. We also intend to gather information under the cloak of anonymity without disclosing the name of the complainer.”

MACN in collaboration with the stakeholders will help to sensitize, and identify channels of grievances, although the process will not be instantaneous, it will depend on the seekers feedback, resolution and relay of information. Digitization and analytical tools are being devised to find the incidents of corruption, be it a legislative gap, a process flow, or lack of digitization. MACN is also building capacity-building tools, modules and capsules for budding seafarers.

Marex Media