MARGAO: Goan Seamen Association of India urged seafarers not to fall prey to people offering them false certificates or promising to get their problems with Director General for Shipping solved and asked seafarers having any problem to approach their organisation.
Briefing media persons, Association spokesman Dixon Vaz said that the Director General for Shipping has debarred for five years some Goan seafarers from applying for Indian Continuous Discharge Certificate as their documents have been found to be false or forged.
He said that many seafarers panicked when SSC certificate was made mandatory for Indian CDC but that was changed last year following the intervention of Vijai Sardessai and SSC was not mandatory for those who were already working on a ship.
However, during the period of uncertainty many Goans obtained forged SSC certificates and many also obtained certificates of the mandatory STCW courses without attending any classes and these are the persons who have been debarred for five years.
Dixon said that the Director General for Shipping has blacklisted 20 institutes who were issuing STCW certificates for people who did not even attend the classes and added that some agencies in Navelim are now offering to settle the problem with the DG Shipping and collecting lakhs of rupees from seafarers.
He said that his organisation would appeal to the Director General for Shipping to be lenient with Goan seafarers and reduce the period of ban or give some other opportunity to those who had obtained forged certificates.
Pointing out that the Director General for Shipping was kind enough to consider experience instead of certificate of having passed the tenth standard while applying for Indian CDC, Vaz said that he was confident that some way out would be found.
Announcing that he would be taking up this matter with the NRI Commissioner, Vaz appealed to seafarers not to fall prey to “selfish interests that are only out to make quick money without having any interest in the future of the troubled seafarers.”
