Section 83

An inspecting officer may inspect, either on board the ship or before shipment, any provisions (other than provisions provided by the crew themselves) or water intended for the use of the crew of any North Borneo ship which is going from any port in North Borneo and for which an agreement with the crew is required under this Ordinance and if he finds that the provisions or water are in any respect deficient in quality, the ship shall be detained until the defects are remedied to his satisfaction:

Provided that any inspection of provisions or water under this section shall be made before shipment whenever practicable, and if the owner, agent or master of a ship gives notice to the inspecting officer that any provisions or water for the ship are ready for inspection, the inspecting officer shall not have power to inspect any such provisions or water under this section, if they are at a convenient place for inspection, except within forty-eight hours after the notice is given, without prejudice to the power of the inspecting officer to inspect any provisions or water not specified in the notice or, without unnecessarily delaying the ship, to proceed on board the ship in order to satisfy himself that there has been no evasion of the requirements of this section by the substitution of other provisions or water for those which have been inspected on shore or specified in a notice as being the provisions or water for the ship, or otherwise.

Where any provisions or water are found deficient in quality under this section, the master of the ship shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable to a fine of five thousand dollars, unless the Court before which the case is tried thinks that finding of the inspecting officer was not justified; but, if the master of the ship shows to the satisfaction of the Court that the responsibility for the defects in the provisions or water rests either with the owner of the ship, or any agent of the owner of the ship, or with the person who has supplied the provisions or water, that owner, agent or person shall be liable to conviction for the offence instead of the master, and the master shall be exempt.

The master of the ship and any other person having charge of any provisions or water liable to inspection under this section shall give the inspecting officer every reasonable facility for the purpose of his inspection under this section, and, if such master or other person refuses or fails to do so, he shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable to a fine of five hundred dollars.

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Where any provisions are inspected under this section either before shipment or on board a ship there shall be payable in respect of such inspection such fees as may be prescribed:

Provided that where provisions, which have been inspected and sealed by an inspecting officer, are found on board any ship within such time as may be prescribed as the time for which the seals are to hold good, no fee shall be charged for the verification of the seals.

The Director may appoint officers for the purposes of any inspection under this section, and the expression “inspecting officer”, wherever used in this section, means an officer so appointed.

Allowance for short or bad provisions.