Boat Disaster C'ttee report by May 26

Accra, April 24, GNA - The Volta Lake Boat Disaster Committee, set-up by the Government to investigate the April 8 drowning of a number of people has been inaugurated and given up to May 26 2006 to submit its report.

Inaugurating the Committee on Monday, Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, Minister of Harbours and Railways, said: "You have five weeks from today to present the report. I task you to be prompt, exhaustive, transparent and factual. There is no need to be economical with the truth, as the Government through the Ministry would give you all the needed support."


Prof Ameyaw-Akumfi said; "no two individuals are the same. This particular accident has the semblance of correlation with the eviction of settlers," adding that the Ministry had implemented the recommendations contained in the Justice Paul Gyaesayor Committee established in April 2002 to investigate the April 18 2002 Volta Lake Boat Accident.


The Chairman of the nine-member Committee is Mr Justice Kofi Essel Mensah. The others are Mrs Bernadette Esa Chinery-Hesse, of the Ghana Maritime Authority, Member Secretary; Professor Eric Quaye of the University of Ghana; Captain Aaron Turkson of the Regional Maritime Academy and Nana Osei-Boakye IV Gyasehene of Jasikan.


The rest of the Members are; Commander Moses Beick-Baffour, Ghana Maritime Authority/Ghana Navy; Mr Bright Obeng-Boampong, Acting Managing Director of the Volta Lake Transport Company Limited; Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mr George Yeboah Afari of the Ghana Police Service and Dr Mamaa Entsua-Mensah of the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).


The Committee would sit at Jasikan, Tapa-Abotoase and Accra and also visit other strategic locations on the Lake and in the Park. Its terms of reference are: "To investigate the cause of the accident and the loss of human lives; investigate and establish the actual number of human lives lost as a result of the accident; to examine the extent to which the Wildlife Division's evacuation exercise was linked to the boat disaster and make recommendations on any matter related to the accident."

A boat christened "Born Again" was on April 8 2006 involved in an accident on the Volta Lake, near Tapa-Abotoase in the Jarsikan District of the Volta Region. This sparked off media speculations on the number of fatalities and survivors, with some media reports putting the number of fatalities at more than 120.


However, information available to the GNA indicated that only 95 persons, including those evicted by Officials of the Game and Wildlife Division at Dudzome-Digya, were on board the ill-fated boat. Mr Yaw Kaizaro Awoye, Secretary to the Tapa-Abotoase Boat Owners Association, who is in-charge of the registration of survivors and the dead, on Resurrection Sunday confirmed to the Ghana News Agency that only 10 bodies had been retrieved and buried while 71 survivors had officially registered.


He confirmed that the dead were: Yayra Tobo, aged one year eight months; Kweku Ahiagba, three years; Bright Marcharty, one year seven months; Doe Tabo, eight years; Fati Hassan, seven years; Lydia Ahiagba, five years; Lamin Siedu, 16 years; Mami Labila, 40 year-old pregnant woman; Ama Bedra 46 years and Gado Zamanama, 70 years. Following media reports that 58 corpses of the disaster had been sent to the Worawora Government Hospital and the Margaret Marquart Catholic Hospital at Kpando, both in the Volta Region, the GNA visited the two hospitals in the company of officers of the African Regional Office of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, to ascertain the truth or otherwise of the reports.


The Authorities of the two Hospitals denied receiving 58 corpses of victims of the April 8 2006 Volta Lake Boat Disaster. "We have not received any dead bodies from the accident. The Journalists never visited our premises to verify the report. It was simply a fabricated story by faceless individuals to propagate falsehood to further their selfish aims," Dr Kuklui Gavua, Medical Officer In-Charge of the Kpando, Margaret Marquart Catholic Hospital told the Ghana News Agency.


A section of the media had reported that the Worawora Government Hospital had received 40 corpses while the Margaret Marquart Catholic Hospital at Kpando received 18 corpses of the victims of the boat disaster.

A number of workers at the Worawora Hospital, which included, Mr Ebenezer Kissi Owusu, a Medical Assistant, Mr Joshua Ametah, Storekeeper, and Mr K. Gbeku, a Senior Dispensary Technician, categorically denied the report.


Giving the chronology of events; Mr Owusu said on Friday, March 31, 2006 the fridge at the hospital mortuary broke down and a technician was invited to work on it within the following week. On Friday April 7, the Technician detected that the fault was greater than previously anticipated, and that it would demand more time and effort to repair.


On Monday April 10 the Hospital authorities decided to transfer all the 18 bodies in the mortuary at the time to the Margaret Marquart Catholic Hospital Mortuary at Kpando, which they said was a normal operational arrangement in the Health Sector.


The Hospital Officials said they were surprised to hear for the first time on Thursday, April 13 2006 that 40 bodies of the Volta Lake disaster victims had been deposited at the Worawora Government Hospital with additional 18 corpses sent to the hospital at Kpando. "This is a false report and must be discarded immediately," Mr Owusu told the team and opened the mortuary for it to inspect. The Team found only one corpse in the 120 capacity fridge, which was undergoing a test-run.


Answering question on why the Hospital Authorities waited for 11 days after the fault to transfer the bodies to Kpando, Mr Owusu, who represented Dr Felix Doe, the Medical Officer In-Charge, said depending on the frequency of opening the fridge, bodies could be kept for more than 14 days after a shut-down without any signs of decomposition. Mr Owusu said normally recovered bodies of boat accident victims were buried immediately at the nearest community, adding; "it is not a practice to deposit such bodies in the morgue."

The Worawora Medical Assistant said only three survivors were brought to the Hospital for treatment. Two were treated and discharged the same day while a nine-month old baby, Dotse Agbemava was admitted from April 11 2006 and discharged on April 20 2006.


Dr Gavua collaborated the report of the Worawora Medical Authorities, stressing; "occasionally Worawora and Peki Government Hospitals transfer dead bodies to our Hospital".


He said; "dead bodies from other hospitals are examined by a team of medical doctors before they are deposited at the mortuary and I can say with certainty after examining all the 18 bodies from Worawora Hospital on April 10 that the corpses were not victims of the Boat Disaster."


Dr Gavua appealed to media practitioners to verify their stories; especially health related ones, "as the consequence of any unguided public statement could inflict pain on families, communities and the nation".


There had been an earlier boat accident on the Volta Lake on April 18, 2002.

A boat carrying mostly school children and market women from Abotoase to Matsele capsized near Amevlovikope in the Volta Region. A Justice Gyaesayor Committee was set and it interviewed 39 witnesses. It established that overloading and indiscipline were the causes of the accident, which claimed the life of about 50 people made up of 36 children, two men and 12 women.


The Committee established that the boat designed to carry 53 passengers, had 88 passengers on board in addition to goods. It recommended that the large stretch of the Volta Lake required an efficient and effective lake transport facility and appealed to the Government to implement the recommendations in the report to avoid future disasters on the Lake.


Prof Ameyaw-Akumfi said based on the Gyaesayor Committee's recommendations, the Ministry launched an educational campaign along the Volta Lake on lake transportation operations.


"We have been working with stakeholders, Boat Owners Association, Operators and Navigators, to adhere to safety measures as well as educating passengers not to join overloaded boats in their own interest. The Ministry also through the support of the United Nations Development Programme supplied lifejackets to five communities along the Lake. Prof Ameyaw-Akumfi said with the promulgation of the Ghana Maritime Authority Act, a Traffic Unit had been established to enforce Lake Transport Laws.