At LBH Colombia, we are bound to follow three different safety and quality programs, either by National Law, by Customers/Ports requirements, or International Agreements.
The RUC is the Standard Registry for Contractors in Safety and Health at Workplace and with the Environment. When comparing with last year scoring, we obtained an increase of 4 percentage points in our overall qualification, from 85% in 2015 to 89% in 2016. This result is 19 percentage points above the minimum standard required by large companies in our country to be able to become as an approved contractor.
In HSE (National Decree law number 1072 of 2015) which explicitly qualifies management of safety and health issues at workplace, we obtained a small increase in our overall qualification, from 94,7% compliance in 2015, to 95,3% compliance in 2016. Implementing the entire Decree is a big challenge for small companies due to the amount of norms, regulations and other legal aspects demanded by this Decree.
BASC Recertification. During the months of December and February, LBH Colombia was audited by BASC surveyor at our offices in Coveñas and Buenaventura, obtaining favorable qualification for obtaining our recertification for the 12th year in a row without any major findings or observations. We are expecting audits for our Barranquilla, Cartagena and Santa Marta offices to be completed during the month of April. This program allow us to be in compliance with measures to guarantee a secure commerce within the business alliance privately organized along US Custom Border Protection measures, a certification which is demanded by major private terminals in Colombia as well as in other countries.
The COFACE Certification allow us to compete in tender process, as it qualifies not only our physical safety in all offices, but also our overall financial situation, experienced personnel and proper technology to enable us render a professional service to our customer for the size and mission of the company. When comparing last year scoring, we obtained an increase of 4 percentage points in our overall qualification, from 94% in 2015, to 98% in 2016.
On OEA (Authorized Economic Operator), the country Customs Authority (DIAN) is expected to publish/issue the International Commerce Standards later this year; however, already major companies are beginning to follow the initial steps. In this respect, and considered as one of their critical/sensitive suppliers of services, Drummond Colombia visited our offices in Santa Marta, as they must apply to become an official OEA, in order to check and supervise our own internal process in terms of physical safety, digital security, contracting process, training politics and information management.
All above programs will assist us greatly when DIAN applies the OEA to ship agency services, which in turn will help us to maintain, lagoon with other maritime pre-requisites, our ship agency status.
