Japan helps enhance Sri Lanka Coast Guard’s capacity to handle oil spill control, recovery

By Ifham Nizam

More than 80 Sri Lanka Coast Guard (SLCG) members are now competent enough to handle oil spill control, and recovery, thanks to training and patrol craft and equipment received from Japan.

The training programme was evaluated by a team from the Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) Mobile Cooperation team and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The delegation, headed by Senior Advisor of JICA – Japan Koji Tsuchiya, comprised three JCG and three JICA personnel evaluating the exercise.

The Sri Lanka Coast Guard (SLCG) last week concluded an offshore oil spill response exercise off the Colombo harbour with the participation of the JICA and MCT-JCG members and in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Navy.

SLCG Staff Officer Training Lt. Cmdr. A. M. A. S. Alahakoon told The Island that they had been given a special training to handle disastrous situations. He said that the exercise had been mainly focused on evaluating the knowledge and practical applications of oil spill response skills of the SLCG.

“We hope that the Japanese government and JCG will continue to provide assistance for promoting operational capabilities and capacities in any oil spill response the Sri Lanka Coast Guard undertakes in years to come,” he added.

During the training evaluation exercise, the SLCG has demonstrated its capacity to respond to an offshore oil spill.

JCG and JICA have extended advisory services for building oil spill response capabilities for SLCG since 2015 and the programme is executed under three phases.

The third phase will commence from 2022 to 2024 to establish an in-house advanced oil spill incident management training programme at Sri Lanka Coast Guard for disaster mitigation and marine environment protection.

Phase I commenced in February 2015 and terminated in 2017. It was mainly focused on developing the Basic Coastal Oil Spill Response Skills of the SLCG. This initial training phase was conducted at the Advanced Training Centre-Mirissa by a team of highly qualified JCG oil spill response instructors.

Phase II, which extended from 2019 to 2022, was dedicated to further developing co-competencies in response to the offshore oil spill response by the mobile platforms (ships). In particular, the SLCG has received two brand new Fast Patrol Vessels dedicated for oil spill response operations along with oil spill response equipment in the year 2018 under the project for maritime safety capability improvement.

Phase III is scheduled from 2022-2024 and is mainly intended to inculcate an in-house advanced training capacity system for Disaster Mitigation and Marine Environment Protection of the SLCG under the concept of institutionalisation.