Feasibility Study and Assessment of Operational Costs of Options for the Commission Vessel Monitoring System

Detailed description of project

MRAG provided advice to the Executive Director through the Compliance Manager on the estimated cost and feasibility of two options for the implementation of the Commission VMS that have been identified as offering the best potential to meet the Commission’s needs, namely:

 a. two VMS with the FFA VMS1 forwarding relevant high seas data to the Commission VMS; and

b. two separate VMS (Commission VMS for the high seas and the FFA VMS for FFA member EEZs).

 A cost assessment and feasibility study was conducted by MRAG and its outputs could be readily utilised by the Commission Secretariat to prepare an information paper on this issue for consideration by the second regular meeting of the Technical and Compliance Committee (TCC2) scheduled for September 2006 and easily utilised in the preparation of the Commission’s budget process.

 The scope of work under this assignment included:

a. detailed assessment of the feasibility of the two selected options for implementing the Commission VMS, including linkage to the Commission Vessel Record database; Consulting through a process of structured questionnaires with member states, RFMOS, and fishing representatives.

b. detailed analysis of the establishment and operating costs of the two selected options for implementing the Commission VMS, including options for cost-recovery. The costs should include all required resources including staff, facilities, accommodation and all necessary security measures.