Captain Anand's article 'The challenges of enforcement in global shipping' [Seaways February 2016] is an excellent foundation for a debate on a subject that is a corollary of the competence question. Asked for my views on auditing some years ago, I expressed the opinion that unless it was my audit, or an audit performed by another auditor who I knew personally and had confidence in, then I considered it potentially worthless. I accept that this is a rather extreme position, but personal experience has demonstrated to me that the system both ashore and afloat is so full of holes that a manager should always be sceptical of the evidence that he is presented with - or indeed of the fact that an organisation is approved to a particular standard.
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