Section 35: Tonnage regulations.

(1) The Minister, on the advice of the Administration, may be statutory instrument make regulation (hereinafter referred to as “tonnage regulations”) to— a) provide for the measurement and survey of ships by a surveyor; b) make different provisions for different descriptions of ships or for the same description of ships in different circumstances; c) make any provisions of the regulations dependent on compliance with such conditions to be evidenced in such manner as may be specified in the regulations; d) provide for the issue of an International Tonnage Certificate (1969) by a foreign contracting Government at the request of the Government of Sierra Leone; e) provide for cancellation and delivery up of any certificate which has lost its validity to the Administration; f) prohibit or restrict the carriage of goods or stores in spaces not included in the registered tonnage of a ship and provide for making the master and the owner each liable to a fine not exceeding five million leones when such prohibition or restriction is contravened; g) provide for inspection of ships registered in a country where the International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships (1969) is in force when in a port of Sierra Leone; h) provide for acceptance by the Administration of certificates issued under the authority of a contracting Government of the Convention referred to in Paragraph (g); i) make failure to deliver up a certificate under paragraph (h) an offence; j) provide for the form of tonnage certificates; k) provide for determination and issue of Sierra Leone Tonnage Certificate in respect of non Sierra Leone Tonnage Measurement Convention ships. (2) In the tonnage regulations, provision may be made a) for assigning to a ship, either instead of or as an alternative to the tonnage ascertained in accordance with the other provisions of the regulations, a lower tonnage applicable where the ship is not loaded to the full depth to which it can safely be loaded; b) for indicating on the ship, by such mark as may be specified in the regulations, that such a lower tonnage has been assigned to it; and c) where the lower tonnage has been assigned to it as an alternative, for indicating on the ship the depth to which the ship may be loaded for the owner tonnage to be applicable. (3) In making the tonnage regulations, the Minister, on the advice of the Administration, shall incorporate the provisions of the International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships, including any amendments made thereto.