REVISED PROCEDURE FOR ISSUANCE OF NOC BY MERCANTILE MARINE DEPARTMENT FOR THE PURPOSE OF OBTAINING PORT CLEARANCE.

In the meeting or Ports & Shipping Co-ordination Committee on Mercantile Marine Department held on 7th January 2004, the members tabled proposal for revision of procedure for issuance of NOC for Port Clearance by Mercantile Marine Department. The matter has been considered and it has been decided that the revised procedure for issuance of NOC for Port Clearance by Mercantile Marine Department shall be as follows with effect from 1st April, 2004. The revised procedure is subject to review by Mercantile Marine Department, if it creates any legal complications at any stage. The procedure has been revised to facilitate the trade and in the larger interest of the Shipping Industry.

1. As suggested during the meeting, it has been decided that for issuance of NOC for Port Clearance purpose, duplicate copies of Statutory Certificates of vessels by the issuing authority shall be accepted by Mercantile Marine Department in lieu of the original. However, considering a number of in order to comply with the requirement of STCW-95 it is considered imperative that the Ship's Registry and the Certificates of Competency of Ship's Officers and Crew, shall however be required to be produced in original.
2. For vessels on regular call to Ports of Pakistan, the procedure stated above shall be followed on vessel's first call to Port of Karachi/Bin Qasim, however, for subsequent calls of the vessel the ship owner/agent shall be required to produce the following documents for obtaining NOC for Port Clearance of the vessel:-

   1. Copy of NOC, issued by the MMD on vessel's last call.
   2. Copy of "Details of Ships Documents" checked by the MMD during vessel's last call
   3. Latest Crew list signed by the Master of vessel.
   4. Copy of the "List of certified Seafarers" checked by the MMD Surveyor.
   5. Statement from the Master of the vessel regarding any changes in the status of Certificated Seafarers and nay endorsement on vessels Statutory Certificates.
   6. Statement form Master of the vessel indicating date and time of berthing alongwith berth number.
   7. Undertaking by the ship's agent on Company's letter head signed by and carrying the name and designation of Senior Executive of Company, stating.
      1. That no endorsement has been made on vessel's Statutory Certificate and no changes have taken place in the status of these certificates.
      2. The date at which documents, as specified in Para (1) of this letter, were checked by the MMD.
3. The procedure for regular caller as mentioned above shall however remain valid for a period of two months form the initial inspection of documents, after which, the procedure described in Para 1 above would to be repeated. It is hoped that the above procedure shall greatly facilitate stakeholders of the trade as per their request for accepting duplicate copies of Statutory Certificates and revising the system of issuance of long term Port Clearance for regular callers. The procedure for regular callers has been devised keeping with the requirement that Port Clearance is required to be issued for each call and cannot be for a long term period. However, an attempt has been made to simplify the procedure. The validity of two months in this procedure has been kept with the view to keep a check on status of Statutory Certificates/Annual endorsement and for Certificates of competency for Officers/Crew in case there has been a change in the manning status of the vessel during this period.