Removing sunken, derelict, and abandoned vessels from the port boundaries has its own economic and operational challenges.

This has been highlighted by the Fiji Ports Cooperation Limited Chief Executive, Vajira Piyasena, who is pushing them to seek multi-agency grants to assist in the operational costs.

“We are currently looking at some grants specifically to remove these derelicts because it is economically not viable for us to spend like $25 million to $30 million and sometimes up to $50 million to remove sunken vessels. We have now implemented strict measures to monitor all the vessels, and we are basically stopping any from becoming derelicts.”

Piyasena says that the process is different from their role as port operator, in which they will be working closely with MSAF on the removal process.

He adds that another challenge is the availability of resources like the floating cranes to assist in the work.

FPCL and MSAF say they did a lot of groundwork last year in the signing of the MOU, which they will be working towards.