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Navy empowered to offer security services to ship-protecting companies
View(s):The Sri Lanka Navy has been vested with powers again from August 13 onwards to undertake a maritime security operation project—hitherto provided by Avant Garde Maritime Services (Pvt)—to offer security services to foreign private maritime security companies to ensure the safety of merchant vessels entering Sri Lankan territorial waters, defence sources said. A gazette notification was issued by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake this week in his capacity as Minister of Defence, setting out tasks and responsibilities under the Navy’s maritime service project.
The gazette notice follows Cabinet approval on July 7 for a proposal submitted by President Dissanayake on the basis that commercial ships continue to obtain services of armed forces despite the International Maritime Organisation removing the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Sea as High Risk Zones from January 1, 2023, onwards.
Accordingly, the Navy will be able to carry out the operational, administrative and financial activities under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence to store firearms, ammunition and other equipment belonging to foreign private maritime security companies in the armouries of the Navy and transportation.
Under this project, the Navy will be able to collect revenue from foreign maritime service-offering companies when merchant vessels, represented by them, travel through Sri Lankan waters.
“As a professional naval force, the Navy will provide services to those foreign security companies during the embarkation and disembarkation process of ships represented by them,” Navy Spokesman Commander Buddhika Sampath told the Sunday Times.
Though the sea armoury operations were handled by the Navy in the past, Avant Garde Maritime Services (Pvt) was given a licence in 2012 to provide maritime security services to merchant vessels, bringing in millions as revenue.
The company ran a floating sea armoury. The Bribery Commission filed a case alleging that by giving a licence to the company, the State suffered a loss of Rs.11.4 billion.
The Attorney General had also indicted seven accused, including Avant Garde Chairman Nissanka Senadipathi, Rakna Lanka Chairman Victor Samaraweera and the Ukrainian captain of MV Avant Garde, Gennadiy Gavrylov, in connection with the discovery of 813 firearms and 200,935 rounds of live ammunition from the floating armoury.
However, the Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar acquitted Mr. Senadhipathi and six others in 2021 on the basis that the prosecution failed to prove that the licence issued by then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa was a forged one.
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