Biosecurity Vanuatu streamlines its inspection procedures

The Department of Biosecurity conducted a training for its staff in Port Vila last week to improve its inspection procedures.

Director of Biosecurity, Timothy Tumukon, says the Biosecurity team carried out inspections as part of training conducted in February using a local consultant to review their operational procedures. The training aims to upgrade the level of skills of Biosecurity officers to ensure they operate inspections using the same procedures throughout Vanuatu.

The department conducted a similar training in Mid-February and this was the Port Vila leg of the training.

All officers including those based at the wharves, the airport, the Post Office and the Administration attended the training to ensure they understood the updated procedures and followed them when carrying out their inspection.

“There were a few days of the week that were allocated to desktop exercises or training in the classroom and two days — on Thursday and Friday, there were field exercises for the staff to get the feel of what it’s like out in the field, and to apply the procedures learned in the training,” Director Tumukon explained to Kizzy Kalsakau of 96 BuzzFM’s Vanuatu Nightly News.

“The inspections were done at places where we are stationed – the Post Office, at the wharves for the clearance of ships and at the airport for aircraft clearance.”

Tumukon says the main aspects of the inspections are to ensure that the products that are coming into the country comply with Vanuatu’s import conditions.

Such as, for example, at the Port Office they went through mail to ensure that articles or items that needed quarantine or biosecurity clearance had to go through the process for those.

“Similarly, at the wharf they do ship clearance, there are certain things that they’ll have to have a look at for quarantine or biosecurity clearance they’ll have to follow set procedures to clear those.

“There’ll be some items that can be confiscated and destroyed that do not comply with the Quarantine Act and Plant Protection Act, which Biosecurity officers depend on to carry out their duties and functions,” he explained to Kizzy Kalsakau.

He stressed that the inspections were part of the department’s core activities and the training helped them to streamline the inspection procedures to ensure staff knew and followed the procedures for how the department wanted the inspections carried.