A boat disaster on the Black Volta in the Savannah Region has left one person dead and about five others missing, citinewsroom.com reported over the weekend. The disaster happened when the boat transporting passengers from Dorkorchina to Kpandai capsized as a result of alleged overloading.
According to the website, Mr. Kipo Sulemana, Bole District Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), confirmed the incident to Citi News on Saturday, May 27, and said one person had died, two others survived the incident, while about five others remained missing.
“They were traders who were coming from the northern part of the Bono side across to their villages, and they are always around the riverside up to the Côte d’Ivoire boundary. These people were coming from the northern side, and when they got to a point, their canoe capsized.
We recorded one death, a lady. The ladies were two with three men, and the one who was driving the engine boat is yet to be recovered to know whether he is alive or not,” Sulemana was quoted as saying.
On May 12, this year, there were reports that nine school children had died when the canoe on which they were travelling to cross a river while returning from school capsized at Faana-Wiabomaa, an island community in the Ga South Municipality of the Greater Accra Region.
The canoe was being allegedly paddled by one of the students who claimed he could ferry his colleagues across safely from the Wiabomaa side where the school is located to Faana to their various homes. Apart from these two incidents, there have been numerous reports about boat disasters on the Volta Lake in particular.
Shockingly after the usual reports by the media and subsequent mourning, we all go back to sleep without tackling the root cause of the problem. Experts have advised that to help curb deaths on big rivers, canoe or boat owners should always provide life jackets for their passengers.
Unfortunately, this advice has not been heeded, as the country continues to record boat or canoe related deaths, especially on the Volta Lake.
The big question is, who is supposed to supervise the wearing of these life jackets whenever passengers board boats and canoes – is it NADMO, the police or the respective district assemblies?
It is sad that at this modern age, Ghana continues to record maritime deaths that could have been prevented if pragmatic measures had been put in place.
In the case of Faana-Wiabomaa, the authorities knew that the children had been crossing the river on a daily basis to attend school without wearing life jackets, but nothing was done to ensure the safety of these children.
The sad aspect of it is that immediately the disaster occurred, state officials started trooping to the village and making all kinds of promises to avert future disasters.
It appears to us that here in Ghana we always want to see the spillage of blood before acting to prevent disasters. A truck will break down on the highway, but instead of towing it from the road, we wait until an accident occurs before rushing to tow it away.
A typical case is what happened to the late Ebony, the young musician who met her untimely death on the Kumasi-Sunyani Highway because somebody had excavated portions of the road and left the sand uncollected.
But immediately the cause of the death came to the attention of the public, the said sand was removed – yes, we love the spillage of blood before acting to avert disasters.
As we earlier indicated, we do not know the one responsible for the safety of Ghanaians traveling in boats or canoes on our major rivers. We, however, think the district assemblies have major roles to play.
The Chronicle is, therefore, calling on the Minister responsible for Local Government and Rural Development to liaise with his counterpart from the Transport Ministry to jaw-jaw on the best way to end these preventable deaths on the Volta Lake.
In situations where children have to cross rivers using canoes to access education, the Ghana Education Service must also make sure that they are being given protection. This means they have to buy life jackets for each of the children whose parents cannot obviously afford one.
We believe if these measures are put in place and rigidly enforced, it will help to curb the recurring boat or canoe disasters on the Volta Lake.
