Volta Lake Boat Disaster Probe begins

The Gyaesaeyor Committee probing the causes of the boat disaster on the Volta Lake on April 18 in which many people including school children were drowned started sitting at Tapa-Abotoase on Monday.

The six-member committee under the chairmanship of Mr Justice Paul Gyaesaeyor, a Supervising High Court Judge at Ho, was set up by the Ministry of Roads and Transport to investigate the circumstances that led to the accident.

The terms of reference of the committee include finding the cause of the accident, establishing the actual number of people who lost their lives and recommending effective regulations and enforcement of measures to ensure safe transportation on the Volta Lake.

Mr Kwaku Gyamfi, 35, a native of Senya Braku and a fisherman at Manchedi, a village along the Volta Lake and a survivor of the accident at Amevlovikope Island, who said he later joined the search and rescue team, told the Committee that he counted 84 dead bodies after the disaster.

Mr Gyamfi attributed the cause of the accident to overloading of the boat.

He said more than 200 people including school children joined the boat that day in addition to 150 pieces of bamboo sticks, bags of sugar, a quantity of flour, salt and corn dough in sacks.

Mr Gyamfi said he saw women, who were in the boat, weeping when the two operator assistants of the boat found it difficult to scoop water out of the leaking boat after they had switched off the two engines attached to the boat. To a question by the Chairman of the committee as to how he managed to survive, he said as a fisherman, he swam onto the capsized boat and that it took about two hours before a boat came to their rescue.