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Research in Lake Victoria gets a boost
2006-08-06 08:18:26
By Christopher Magola
A research under the Lake Victoria Safety Navigation Project has received a new boost after getting a ship to be used for conducting research.
The East African Community (EAC) Research Vessel, RV Jumuiya, was received and launched by the Community’s Secretary General Ambassador Juma Mwapanchu at Mwanza Port on 29 May 2006.
Lake Victoria Safety Navigation Project for investigating and improving maritime safety on the lake being funded by the French Development Agency was conceived after the MV Bukoba Tragedy on 21 May 1996 in which more than 600 people were killed.
Immediately after the tragedy the International Maritime Organization-IMO- organized a workshop in Mwanza to identify a range of maritime safety hitches relating to the lake that ought to be addressed.
They included an absence of unified maritime safety laws, regulations and multi-institutional responsibilities and relationships and the absence of a search and rescue infrastracture.
Others were the poor or obsolete communication systems, an absence of aid to navigation in the entire lake and obsolete nautical charting publications, which had last been done about a century ago.
Later the EAC Secretariat initiated a process of consultations amongst stakeholders and development partners and in November 2001 it received technical assistance from IMO with French funding for short-term consultancy studies in maritime legislation, aids to navigation, hydrography and search and rescue.
The studies undertaken between April and October 2002 provided detailed proposals on survey of the lake, search and rescue and aids to navigation, among others, and a draft lgislative framework for regulating transportaton on the lake was prepared.
The first task of the vessel will be to undertake the hydrographic (depth) survey of Lake Victoria, especially in regard to access to all the Ports within Lake Victoria (Mwanza, Bukoba in Tanzania, Kisumu in Kenya and Port Bell in Uganda). The vessel will also carry out other research activities within the Lake.
A statement issued by the EAC Secretariat said the 600,000 US dollars research vessel, was donated by the Department For International Development (DFID), UK and was initially based in Lake Nyasa where it was dismantled and transported to the Mwanza port by road.
The convoy transporting the cargo entered Tanzania border on 5th April 2006. The convoy covered about 2,273 km and passed through Kasumulu to Mwanza where it reached on 26th April 2006. The re-assembling and testing of the vessel was funded by the Government of France under the Financing Agreement signed with the EAC in April 2005.
Receiving the vessel the EAC Secretary General Ambassador Juma Mwapachu said its launch was an important milestone for the EAC integration process and particularly, in the implementation of the Safety of Navigation Project on Lake Victoria. He called on about 30 million East Africans who directly benefit from Lake Victoria resources to take care of the vessel.
Handing over Rv Jumuiya’s ignition switch and registration certificate Captain Mark Christopher Day, a consultant with the DFID said he was optimistic the vessel’s mission of minimizing disasters in the lake would be accomplished.
According to the Permanent Secretary in the Kenyan Ministry for East African Cooperation, Ambassador Peter Nkuraia, who chairs the community co-ordination committee, RV Jumuiya was an indication that the lake was the world heritage as its water was drunk in Egypt and fish eaten in Europe.
The launch of the vessel comes at a time when Partner states of The East African Community-EAC-through the Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project - LVEMP- have put in place several initiatives to harmonize the management and sustainability of Lake Victoria, a major shared resource in the region.
Lake Victoria or Victoria Nyanza (also known as Ukerewe and Nalubaale) is one of the Great Lakes of Africa. Lake Victoria is 68,800 square kilometres (26,560 miČ) in size, making it the continent’s largest lake, the largest tropical lake in the world, and the second largest fresh water lake in the world in terms of surface area.
Being relatively shallow for its size, with a maximum depth of 84 m (276 ft) and a mean depth of 40 m (131 ft), Lake Victoria ranks as the seventh largest freshwater lake by volume, containing 2,750 cubic kilometres (2.2 million acre-feet) of water.
It is the source of the longest branch of the Nile River, the White Nile, and has a catchment area of 184,000 square kilometres (71,040 miČ).
Marine experts say sailing on Lake Victoria have become increasingly dangerous as the lake lacks navigational facilities and the beacon lights that were erected in the 1960s to guide ships and boats are no longer in place. There is no doubt through Rv Jumuiya the Navigation project will highlight these safety hitches.
According to East African a report prepared for the EAC by a team of experts from the International Maritime Organisation after the MV Bukoba tragedy in 1996 painted a grim picture of transport safety on the lake.
The report said that the last surveys of the lake were undertaken between 1900 and 1906 by the British Admiralty and recommended the resurveying of the entire lake, adding that the only nautical publication, Sailing Directions, prepared in 1986, which describes the routes between major ports on the lake, needed updating.
The experts also wanted the route chart to various ports to be clearly defined and redrawn to scale. Names used in the old charts, the report said, were incorrect.
The East African Community has come under renewed pressure to enact the long awaited Lake Victoria Transport Act following an increase in maritime accidents on the lake.
The Act will regulate maritime safety and make provision for the construction, survey, registration and licensing of all vessels used on Lake Victoria. It also imposes fines of $3,000-$10,000 for companies operating unseaworthy vessels and those employing unqualified crew.
Once the new law takes effect, no vessel can embark on a voyage without distress call equipment. Crew must also carry up-to-date charts, sailing directions, lists of aids to navigation, notices to mariners, tide tables and all other nautical publications necessary for the intended voyage.
A marine engineer, Ali Mukhtar, has been quoted as saying that many of the vessels operating on the lake will be locked out if the Transport Act were enacted. ’’The crew in most of the ships are ill-trained. The ships they man also lack basic navigational facilities,’’ he said.
’’With the many environmental and ecological changes in the lake, the chart has outlived its usefulness and should be revised,’’ said Captain Elijah Agak of the Kenya cargo ferry, mv Uhuru.
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