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Vice-Admiral Johannes Mudimu

The chief of the SA navy says he is discussing with the Defence Ministry the possibility of placing security forces on commercial vessels to combat piracy, which is costing the global economy up to R100 billion a year.

With piracy dominating the third day of the 18th meeting of the standing maritime committee, Vice-Admiral Johannes Mudimu said that the “international trend” of having armed guards aboard commercial vessels was being considered by SADC (Southern African Development Community), and that he had “personally” brought this possibility to the attention of Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and the SANDF chief Solly Shoke.

With pirates turning their attention from Somali waters to those off Tanzania and Mozambique, Mudimu believes that the scourge needs to be dealt with “decisively”.

Speaking on the economic impact of piracy at the meeting, which is being attended by the naval heads of the SADC countries, the head of Tanzania’s navy, Saidi Shabani Omar, said there had been a 30 percent drop in the number of ships entering the Dar es Salaam port.

He said the insurance premiums for ships had spiked as much as ten times. The result has been that the cost of living and commodities have “gone up drastically”.

Payouts

According to the SA navy, the bill which the global economy foots for piracy is R100bn a year – which includes roughly R1bn spent on ransom payouts, R20bn on security equipment, and R25bn on insurance premiums.

Omar said that Tanzania had 19 pirates in custody. Seven of them were caught in October, but he said outside of Tanzania, where they are handed life sentences, most pirates got off scot-free.

“This issue has been very difficult for the international community, because we must be aware that the word ‘pirate’ was not in the vocabulary of many countries, so very few had legal aspects dealing with this issue.

“Even in our case, three years ago we did not have piracy in our penal code, and only with the introduction of this problem in our areas did we have change to include it as one of the crimes punishable in our courts,” he said.

According to Omar, the absence of transfer agreements for prosecution between African countries had made matters worse.

“When the pirates are caught… it becomes a problem as to where to send them. There are transfer agreements with some African countries… (who have) agreed to get these pirates transferred. Unfortunately, because very few countries have agreed on this, most pirates caught, never appear in court,” he said, adding that “very few” of the “10 percent” of pirates who were prosecuted were convicted.

Mudimu said that fundamental to combating piracy was funding to acquire more “naval assets and capabilities”, and attending to “porous borders” in the region.