Article - 112 Week 40 | God's Advocate In General Average

Article - 112 Week 40 |    

God's Advocate In General Average 

Extraordinary expenses, peril, common adventure, and many such porous and subjective words are cleverly woven to make ransom look like a lollypop. You pay a carrier to carry your cargo. The carrier goofs up and the vehicle catches fire. Then the carrier proves that God was responsible for the disaster, by weaving such clever words. He calls it "General Average" and arm-twists  you to pay - to both douse the fire and repair all the damages caused in the fire and the delays. And that is known gloriously as International Law in shipping.

 

Think of one of those silly mob movies. The Don kidnaps a few rich kids. Then he calls the rich Dads and gives them the bad news in an emotionless threatening drone. Then you see a lot of tears, howling, wailings, and the desperate prayers. Anxiety levels soar.  All eyes on the silent phone box. A second call comes with the sad cry of a kid. Then the Don drones at the rich  Dads to fax him their latest IT returns. A fax machine in Dubai purrs into life. A long wait of another two days. A demand for ransom comes in. The richer Dad pays more as per Don's justice system. Next call specifies the time and vicinity for the ransom collection. Ransom is collected. Then the Police enters.

Shippers load cargo on board M.V. Amsterdam Bridge from Nhava Sheva. The ship loads and leaves port. There is a fire on board ship. The 'Hows' and the 'Whys' are unknown to outside. The owner of the ship declares 'General Average'. The shippers panic and howl. The ship owner appoints smart lawyers as Adjusters. Shippers are instructed to send their Commercial Invoices & Packing Lists to determine the value.  The adjusters will see the value and send demand notes to the shippers. The full amount will be cost plus to cover more costs for the ship owner. The shippers would pay the demand amounts and sign a Bond. The Bond is cleverly worded by very smart lawyers to take away any possibility of recourse by the shippers. Then the cargo would be released at any point of choice by the owner.

Unfortunately, there are many small shippers in a container ship carrying thousands of boxed cargo, who are victims of this extortion. It's nearly impossible for them to join hands together to hire smart & expensive lawyers to prove that it was not God who set the ship on fire. In case God still escapes unblemished, the law stipulates that the owner of the vessel shall not be responsible for the mistakes of his employees and therefore it would tantamount to an act of God. Under such damning conditions, who will be God's advocate?

Brgds  

(Capt Rath) Skype Gtalk MSN :  psrath

Econship

Quicker Simpler Better

Article - 112 Week 39 | Idealistically Speaking

Idealistically Speaking

The producers and creators are  indeed  prisoners in a stifling system. Freedom is preached and stolen in the same breath. When you need to sell your product or creation to another legal entity, the government jumps in. You need a license to sell and a tax to pay. The buyer needs a license to buy -  more oppressive in the B2B & B2G domain. A Shipping agent needs a license or permissions from the Customs, the Port, the Municipality, the Service Tax Department, the Income Tax Department, the PF Department, the ESIC Department, the Labour & Welfare Department, the Professional Tax Department, the Fire Department, the MMD, the DG Shipping, the Plant Quarantine, and so on. A ship owner is even worse off. There are far too many Government agencies not only slowing things down in our industry, but also robbing away the edge we could have over our competition in the world stage. It's eating away into our economic and social well being.

We can not wish away all these multitude of Government institutions, agencies, and sub agencies. They have their roles. Even if they don't have their roles, they would continue to be there as a nuisance agent - like our Light House Authority. However, all these multitude of unfair licenses, permissions, and taxes can easily be capsuled into one window. In other words, one window for permissions and to collect taxes. On the Tax front, they need to merge all Central, State, Municipality, and other Taxes into one Window. Then the Government can share the spoils among various bodies in a fair and equitable manner as they deem fit.  Even if they quarrel internally, the businesses & the people are not unduly hurt.

Such  reforms could change our industry from one of the most laggard to one of most celebrated one. This appears wishful thinking at this point of time. However, there is a need for us to dream of such possibilities to liberate us from the tentacles of mediocrity. May be in a distant future our dreams will come true. 

Article - 110 Week 36 | IAS Vs IMS – Indian Maritime Services

Article - 110 Week 36 |   

IAS Vs IMS – Indian Maritime Services

We have had a a lot of good things in place and the nation has benefitted tremendously on them. Having said that, we also need to reflect that, we inherit and continue to create a whole lot of dumb policies, administrative mechanisms, legislations, and regulations in our industry. This toxic cocktail can transform any sensible administrator into a disillusioned god airdropped with unlimited sanctions. One such joke is going around that we should have IMS in direct mocking competition with the elite IAS mandarins. We should realise that this IAS thing is a continuation of the colonial system of governance for tax extraction and oppression of the people. This service has done more disservice than service to the people of this nation. A class among classes, they are second to none – not even their political patrons at times. They are the shadow dictators in their own realms. They are perfectly insulated from the naked ground with varying castes of Babudom. Protected by the system for all their foolishness, they perceive themselves to be infallible all-knowing geniuses. They write rule books in volumes. If one man in a billion breaks their rules, they punish the entire billion. Their rule books are in large volumes. But all of them leak. All of them stink. All of them punish the majority and favour a handful. Political leaders in most cases are severely intimidated with these tricky & incomprehensibly large rule books in the fear of breaching the constitution. 

The talked-about IMS will create many more such creatures with a seemingly all-round technical know-how, with more devastating mindsets to obstruct all things that move. Probably with more precision! Administrators need not be technically sound and thorough in the nuts and bolts they administer. If that was the case, the CEOs of all successful engineering companies like GE or L&T will be only engineers, or the CEOs of all healthcare companies would be doctors. While technical skills are immensely valuable for execution, it becomes equally limiting for administration and management. Administration and management is in itself a very specialised domain, where you need a whole lot of innate qualities of leadership with empowering education & training in administration and management. India recruits a majority of poor or mediocre administrators in the name of IAS or IPS, purely on the basis of rote-power, IQ, & language skill, ignoring the most important factors of leadership, like higher human values and EQ(Emotional Quotient). So talking about IMS is like talking about aping grotesque imperfection. At least the IAS folks have the edge on IQ and linguistic skills. And the proposed IMS guys would be below par on these departments. If this IAS stuff has been a dumb idea for ages, this IMS will be the dumbest of them all.

Brgds

Capt Rath 

Econship

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