Issuance of Seafarer Identification Documents for seafarers begins

The issuance of Seafarer Identification Documents (SIDs) for seafarers to undertake sea voyages has commenced.

Seafarers are required to have SIDs to be granted entrance to international ports and airports.

Local seafarers, attributed to the absence of SIDs, have been denied entry to some countries for years.

In order to address the issue - the Transport Ministry in collaboration with Maldives Immigration began efforts to formulate a document, which will be acceptable at ports, in May of this year.

The wait ends today, as Immigration has now commenced the issuance of SIDs for applicants.

As per a tweet by Immigration on Thursday – those who have already applied for SIDs can collect their SIDs until 6:00pm this evening from Velanaage’s 1^st floor.

Otherwise, the documents can be collected on all working days starting next week. QueueBee tokens for the collection of the documents will be issued between 8:30am and 5:00pm on working days.

Maldives made it to the white list of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 2015. The same year, the country ratified the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) which is required for member states to ratify.

However, the delays in the issuance of SIDs had slowed down the seafaring sector of the nation, with talks of the sector fading away taking stage.