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Any solution to lake Victoria travel blues?
2007-06-24 09:17:50
By Staff Writer Darius Mukiza
The company whose ship stalled two weeks ago on Lake Victoria igniting un precedented panic to passengers is strangely advising against use of any other ferry boats except its ships which it says are the most reliable under the rough conditions of the lake.
MV Victoria, one of the three-ship fleet of MSC, swayed uncontrollably for about two hours only 30 km to Mwanza port on its voyage from another lakeside port of Bukoba and again stalled hardly 100 metres before it could anchor at Mwanza North port on Saturday, sending alarms throughout Tanzania as wary passengers frantically kept their relatives worried as they stuck to their mobile phones.
The panic came in the wake of memories of a major disaster in the lake and extremely near the spot in 1996 when MV Bukoba, incidentally plying from Bukoba, capsized and sunk, killing innocent lives in their hundreds.
According to the Acting General Manager of MSC, Willibald Kilenzi, the fleet comprising Victoria, Umoja and Serengeti is relatively safe and can be relied upon in comparison to those owned by private operators, despite being in operation for many years.
Kilenzi told The Guardian on Sunday that the public owned entity is about to be privatized as the Government is not in the mood of purchasing any new marine vessels to add to the ageing fleet.
He said bigger ships are stronger and safer than small ferry boats, which he claimed cannot even tolerate sporadic changes of weather of Lake Victoria waters, adding: ``The rough weather that is managed by the Victoria ship cannot get managed by any other ferry in the lake. That is why boat accidents are rampant in the lake.``
He said all the big ships managed by the Marine Services Company are fully equipped with life jackets, emergence small boats and fire extinguishers, and that all of them have been licensed, stressing that in case of an accident it was easy for passengers to get rescued and be compensated for any loss.
The MSC chief attributed regular engine failures of the ships to fishermen\'s nets which are caught when the vessels ply the lake but the situation should cause any panic as it easily checked by the company experts who dive and take the nets out of the engines, noting that constant maintenance of the ships assures reliability.
Competitors are pointing fingers at MSC for poor safety of passengers, but the company says no other operator in the lake waters can compare with it in those terms because every year it received good performance award from Surface and Marine Transport regulatory Agency (SUMATRA) unlike its competitors.
Following rising operational costs the company is envisaging changes in fares to be effective any time from now although the acting general manager said they were awaiting clearance from SUMATRA.
MSC competitors Fast Ferries Limited, however, say that before they were forced to close services on the lake due to some technical reasons their boats sailed twice a day covering the distance between Mwanza and Bukoba in three-and-a-half hours per voyage enabling passengers to travel comfortably.
Bashiri Khaki, spokesperson for Fast Ferries, said it is now unsafe, unreliable and slow to travel on the lake, a remark that was echoed by John Mugisha and Juvent John, Dar es Salaam residents with origin from Bukoba who say they would no longer travel to their hometown through Mwanza.
He added that their boats that are not in operation presently due to some technical problems had the capacities to serve people who wanted to travel from Mwanza. He said currently people in the lake zone lack safe, reliable and fast means of transport.
Commenting on the marine vessels problems in the lake, the Secretary of SUMATRA consultative Council Oscar Kikoyo said he was soon traveling to the lake zone to study the situation of marine transport
``I will be soon traveling to Mwanza and Kagera to study the problems that face the residents when voyaging with marine vessels.
I am sure after the visit the agency will be in the position of solving them,`` he said.
He, however, added that that there is great need of finding the possible solutions of transport for dwellers in the lake zone.
He said this when was asked by this reporter to clarify what residents in the lake zone should do in order to transport safely since ships, boats and land transport are not safe.
Commenting on the matter John Mgisha a resident of Bukoba who lives inn Dar es salaam said that he can longer travel to Bukoba via Mwanza since he cannot tolerate spending the all night in water with MV Victoria.
On his side Juvent John also a resident of Bukoba who lives in Dar es salaam said that the people of Bukoba now lacks safe means of transport.
He added that since the MV Victoria is not safe and the fast ferries are not operating, also the road means of transport is not safe too. He called this situation as a way to hell.
The fast ferries were stopped from operation by the government since 2005 due to technical errors. And the time when they should resume their operations is in limbo since the government has not been given the company the go ahead permission.
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