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The Committee refers to its observation concerning the draft regulation relating to the certification of ships' cooks, the text of which the Government appended to its 1983 report.

The Committee notes that this draft does not contain any provisions prescribing a minimum period of service at sea, as required by Article 4, paragraph 2(b), of the Convention. Moreover, the draft does not give full effect to paragraphs 2(c), 3 and 4 of Article 4, which provide that examinations prescribed or controlled by the competent authority should include certain specific tests. The Committee would be much obliged to the Government if it would indicate the manner in which these provisions of the Convention will be applied in the organisation of examinations and the grant of certificates of qualification by the "Centro de Instrucción Técnica y Entrenamiento Naval" (CITEN).

Finally, the Committee wishes to point out that section 17 of the draft, which will permit the grant of certificates of qualification to cooks having more than two years of service at the date of the adoption of the regulations concerned, subject only to their passing a medical examination, is not in conformity with Article 5 of the Convention. This Article of the Convention permits a certificate of equivalence to be granted to seafarers having served two years as cooks before the expiry of a period of three years from the date of entry into force of the Convention for the country concerned. In the case of Peru, this period expired on 24 August 1965.