The crew of the ship "Kotor" complained to inspectors in the UK that they had not been paid.

The bulk carrier "Kotor" of the company Crnogorska plovidba AD from Kotor, completed the unloading of a cargo of wood pellets in the British port of Tyne yesterday, but due to an order from the British PSC inspection, it will not be able to sail from that port until further notice.

Namely, on August 4, British PSC inspectors conducted an expanded inspection of the 35.000-ton bulk carrier in Tyne and Wear, and found several technical and procedural irregularities, some of which must be rectified before the ship is allowed to continue its voyage.

Although some Montenegrin media reported on Tuesday that the defects on the "Kotor" are allegedly so serious that the ship is in danger of losing its class, which is given to it by the renowned classification society Bureau Veritas, this is not the case. The media reported that "the ship's detention in the UK once again calls into question its technical soundness and operational reliability", however, not one of the 22 defects recorded by British port state control inspectors Tony Wilson and Asif Hanif, according to their minutes, which "Vijesti" has access to, make the "Kotor" technically defective and unreliable for navigation.

Report of the inspection that inspected the ship

Namely, most of these shortcomings relate to minor problems that indicate that the crew of the "Kotor" is unmotivated to perform daily tasks on the ship, which include its regular maintenance and cleaning, due to untimely payments by Crnogorska plovidba, which has been facing the problem of insolvency for months.

For example, British PSC inspectors found that some areas on the ship, such as the sanitary facilities on the bridge and in the engine room, were insufficiently clean, there was an increased presence of flies in the ship's galley, and the refrigerator had not been cleaned, greasy rags and waste were found in the engine room in places where they should not be, the floors were either greasy or covered in water...

That the crew of the "Kotora" is unmotivated and unwilling to work in a situation where their salaries are late is shown by the first of several deficiencies discovered that are sufficient for the PSC inspection to keep the ship in port: the failure to pay the crew for the month of July. The minutes state that the seafarers from the "Kotora" received their last salary for the month of June, after the ship (among other things also due to the delay in the crew's salaries) was detained that month in the American port of Savannah. The crew complained to the inspectors that on as many as eight occasions from December last year to July this year, their salaries were late or were paid in half.

The dissatisfaction of the crew and the fact that Crnogorska plovidba has been facing a huge problem of insolvency for months, due to the untimely reactions of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs to approve the continuation of the revolving credit arrangement with Prva Banka in a timely manner, are also indicated by other shortcomings noted by PSC inspectors in Britain, which can be attributed to the crew's inaction, namely the chronic lack of spare parts for timely repair of minor defects on the ship: corrosion on some fire pipes, damaged insulation on some electrical installations on deck, non-functional fire detectors in several rooms of the ship, defective insulation devices used in the event of a fire, hydraulic system pipes for opening and closing the broaching devices from which hydraulic oil is leaking, leaks in the fuel pumps on cylinders 1 and 4 of the main engine, water leaks from the main engine cooling system, corrosion on the part of the door leading from the superstructure to the ship's deck, porous exhaust system of the third auxiliary engine, limitedly functional buckle on the lifeboat, lack of a couple of screws on the lid of one of the ballast tanks...

"None of these technical deficiencies are so serious that, with a little investment and work by the crew, they cannot be quickly eliminated. In this finding of the British PSC inspection, there is no basis at all for the claim that 'Kotor' is allegedly in danger of losing its class, and I think that such theses are deliberately placed in order to create the illusion in the Montenegrin public that the ship is not worth much and that it will be sold to someone tomorrow for relatively little money," an experienced long-distance captain who also deals with the so-called pre-purchase survey, i.e. inspections of used merchant ships during their purchase and sale, told "Vijesti".

A few days ago, Crnogorska plovidba put both of its ships, "Kotor" and "Dvadesetprvi maj", on the used ship market, because at the initiative of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, which claims that the state allegedly no longer has any legal possibility to support this 100% state-owned company to maintain liquidity and get out of trouble, the Government made a decision to urgently sell both of Crnogorska's ships.

Until this happens or the deficiencies identified on it on August 4 in Secret are eliminated, the "Kotor" will be forcibly stopped in that British port, which further complicates the Montenegrin position, as it creates large additional costs for it every day.

The inspectors also found several deficiencies on the ship related to the living and working conditions of seafarers, i.e. violations of the MLC Convention, as they determined that there was no running hot water in several rooms on the "Kotor", as well as the fact that two seafarers had been on board continuously since July 22 last year, which exceeds the industry standards maximum permitted duration of embarkation of nine months.

British PSCV inspectors also determined the same thing that US Coast Guard inspectors had previously determined in the port of Savana on the "Kotor" - poor implementation of the International Safety Management Convention (ISM), for which they gave Crnogorska plovidav three months to remedy it.

Incidentally, after the "Kotor" was kept in the Secret Service, the executive director of Crnogorska plovidba, Vladimir Tadić, resigned from that position two days ago, further complicating the situation with the management of that state-owned company. Just a few days before that, Tadić tried to deny the headlines of "Vijesti" that the Ministry of Maritime Affairs was not responding to the calls of the management of Crnogorska to help the company and save its ships, claiming that "we have very good communication with the competent Ministry of Maritime Affairs, which is actively involved in resolving the problems facing Crnogorska plovidba, within its legally defined competences".

"The ministry is fully available to us for all other forms of support within its jurisdiction, including administrative, legal and logistical assistance, and is continuously engaged in that regard," Tadić announced on August 1.

The Ministry of Maritime Affairs, led by Filip Radulović (PES), which has been on collective vacation since August 4, has not yet made any announcement regarding the new stopover of the ship "Kotor", and the director of Crnogorska plovidba has resigned in the meantime.