Saving lives at sea is government’s job, says PM on outsourcing search and rescue

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has brushed off a suggestion that EU governments should employ private NGOs, like MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station), to carry out private search and rescue on their behalf.

Founders Chris and Regina Catrambone have already poured $8 million from their business, the Tangiers Group – a specialist insurance firm for high-risk areas – to finance their €250,000-a-month mission to save lives at sea.

MORE from MaltaToday • Financing MOAS's life-saving mission: is privatised search and rescue the future?

MOAS has already saved 5,000 migrants at sea since it since its launch in August of 2014 with the Phoenix, a specially-equipped vessel that has brought on the services of former Armed Forces of Malta commander Martin Xuereb.

The Catrambones have defended their concept of “venture philanthropy” – the privatisation of states’ obligations when it comes to the rescue of migrants at sea.

“We’ve taken a risk to prove a concept,” Catrambone told Vice News.

“Of course we’re not going to find EU governments ready to jump the fence and decide a private initiative is better than a state initiative,” he said of privatised SAR, which he likened to the US government’s outsourcing of military operations to private contractors.

“If we could get them to initially recognise that we were successful and that this concept can be possibly taken on at an EU level… it’s completely humanitarian, so I think that there is a solution that Europe can look at, and say ‘hey, we can outsource this to an NGO.’”

But Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat has stated that governments should not abdicate their responsibilities on search and rescue. “What private individuals do is very important... [but] whatever resources, private companies, NGOs devote to this, should not be an excuse for governments not to do anything,” he said.

Even the suggestion of copying the American example to outsource military operations in Iraq generates a smatter of disbelief in Muscat. “It isn’t the best of examples when one compares the results achieved in Iraq.”

“When it comes to saving lives and the crucial role of security, and safety at sea, I think it would be too easy for some people to write cheques for someone to do what is definitely the core function of the State.”

While governments in Europe might balk at the prospect of outsourcing their legal obligations, American filmmaker Robert Young Pelton – hired by Catrambone to help MOAS become a sustainable NGO – mooted the possibility of MOAS working on behalf of commercial shipping lines, shadowing merchant vessels and respond to boats in need so the freighters don’t have to.

“Private indicatives can come up with concepts and solutions faster than governments,” Pelton tells Vice News. “Individuals should look at something and say ‘I can fix it’ and others should say ‘I like what they are doing’,” by way of explaining why governments can outsource SAR obligations.

“Direct action is really the most fundamental force for change – people look at that and say ‘wow, that guys cares deeply enough to do something about it’.”

When MaltaToday spoke to MOAS about its plans back in June, a spokesperson said it had not “specific plans” to seek private financing for its missions.

“However, it is clear that our mission to save lives ties in with the need for shipping companies to have professional search and rescue available in their shipping lines.

“We therefore welcome donations from such entities. However, this does not absolve them from search and rescue and cannot be considered to be outsourcing their SAR obligations.”

MOAS is financed by donations, partners and sponsors: apart from Tangiers’s funds, donors include the $1.4 million collaboration with Médèçins Sans Frontieres, €180,000 from Jurgen Wagentrotz, chairman of Germany’s Oil & Gas Invest, donations from the Avaaz community, and drone manufacturers Scheibel.
In 2014 alone, merchant ships rescued around 40,000 people risking their lives making the crossing.

MOAS was recently involved in the rescue, together MSF, of some 400 migrants together with the Irish and Italian navies.