Seafarer Portal
In line with the Merchant Shipping Directorate’s-wide objective to digitalize its services and ensure a more efficient and effective customer experience, the Directorate has launched the Seafarer Portal.
The aim of the Seafarer Portal is to facilitate the application, processing, vetting and issuance of Certificates of Competency, Certificates of Proficiency, Endorsements, Seaman Record Books and Seaman Cards to applicants who meet established criteria.
Individual Seafarers, Agencies applying on behalf of Seafarers, and Foreign Companies (Manning/ Crewing/ Managers) may now use the Seafarer Portal to create, submit, pay and follow-up the status of each application as it is being processed up until delivery.
The Portal is now the main tool used by Seafarer Department personnel who will be vetting, processing and dispatching the received applications through the same portal, thus reducing the time required to manually process the applications received.
This web-based solution is aimed at providing a holistic, one-stop-shop approach for handling all certification currently falling within the remit of the Seafarer Department.
The Seafarer Portal also introduces new features which shall benefit all users, including:
- QR Codes are now available on Certification cards which, once scanned, would direct the user to a specific window on the Seafarer Portal. This allows users to independently confirm the validity of each certificate;
- The ‘Urgent’ Feature allows Users to highlight the application to Seafarer Department personnel and prompts them to prioritise the processing of said application over others;
- Acknowledgements may now be directly printed by Users and temporarily used by Seafarers until the official endorsement certificate arrives by courier;
- Application Progress Tracking shows the progress of all applications belonging to the User throughout the process from Pending, Awaiting Payments, In Progress, Ready for Printing, Sent to Printing and Dispatched by Courier.
The Seafarer Portal may be accessed by following this link: https://seafarers.transport.gov.mt/
In order to facilitate the transition from the current manual system to the digitized service, a User Manual is being provided to assist users in familiarizing themselves to the web-application tool.
