Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Luanda Kotieno Beach.
LACK logistics to support the effective security patrol of the Kenya side of Lake Victoria are some of the impediment to development and major source of insecurity giving leeway to foreign pirates to cross at will and antagonize Kenyan fishermen.
In the entire shoreline of Lake Victoria from Nyadorra in Alego-Usonga to Muhuru Bay In Nyatike district the Kenya police at the various station along the lake shore have got no speedy-boats with which they could respond effectively to any distress signal fro the fishermen.
Contrary to what is happening in Kenya, the neighboring countries of Tanzania and Uganda have equipped their security personnel patrolling their side of the lake with sophisticated equipment, speed-boats and round the clock state of alertness.
The Siaya, Bondo, Rachuonyo North, Homa-Bay, Mbita, Gwassi and Nyatike police bosses have no speed boats. They do respond to distress signals from fishermen and other users of the lake, but at times their responses are hampered by lack of fuels.
The whole of last Mbita district, one of the key frontier districts, remained without a District Commissioner for five good months. There were also no District Officer One, District Officer in-Charge of Mfangano Division and one for Lambwe Valley.
It became so pathetic that a few civil servants working in the various department including departmental heads took the advantage of the situation and went into prolonged holidays.
Several government officials whose homes are in Kisii region resorted to sourcing fuel and other essential supplies from their kith and kin in Kisii. An officer would drive all the way from Mbita Point Town to Kisii town in search of fuel supplies, and yet such supplies were available within Mbit, nearby Homa-Bay Town, Rongo or Ndhiwa for that matter.
But the situation has changed tremendously following the arrival of the new Mbita District Commissioner, Vincent Magoha, {formerly D.C.Nyando}. He had to cope u with the pathetic situation where no civil servant were performing their duties as demanded by their letters of appointment and regulations.
The D.C. actions, in an all out effort to put the running of the administration in the district back in order, sparked off falsified claims that the new DC was using draconian administrative policy. But Magoha told this writer that things were so bad that some civil servants would only show their faces in their offices on Monday, but disappeared immediately even before Thursday of the week only to reappeared the following Tuesdays. Most of the officers seemed to ha taken scotch-men’s leave and abandoned their paces of work for their juniors.
Reports emerging from Remba and Ringiti Islands, which are situated inside Kenyan side of the lake, say foreign smugglers are ferrying thousands of liters of fuel. The fuel is brought in several twenty liters plastic containers and sold not only to Kenyan fishermen, but also finding its way to the Kenyan mainland. Also commonly ferried are the illicit drugs such as bhang and counterfeit goods.
The government of Kenya seemed to have abandoned their citizen, especially the fishermen and those involved in fish trade. Weeks hardly pass without reports of prates from foreign countries having seized fishing boats belonging to Kenyan fishermen. Security personnel on the Kenyan side have no means of responding to distress signal by fishermen due to lack of logistics such as speedy-boats and adequate number of security personnel.
The Mbita D.C. disclosed that with effect from July firsts this year, the government issued a stern directives that all the lake sailing vessels be it a native canoe,.a boat with an outboard engine, motor-boats and even ferries must equip their vessels with life jackets. The life jackets must be displayed openly for the travelling passengers to see before they sailed into the lake. “We are trying to avoid any future disaster as it ha happened elsewhere in the East African coastline and even in some places in Lake Victoria,” said the D.C.
But some wealthy and influential businessmen and traders are flagrantly defying this directive and still visibly ferrying passengers in the lake waters without life jackets. No Sooner than later we will be forced to swing into action in order to have the situation rectified, he added.
The DC was reacting on reports appearing in a section of DAILIES that pirates are rampant, attacking fishermen inside Kenyan waters as far as Bondo and Rarieda district, which are so close to the mainland Kenya. The pirates apart from seizing fishing gears and also confiscating the fishermen catches, under the pretext that they {Kenyan fishermen were fishing in their territorial waters.
The fishermen want the government to equip every police station with security boats with which security personnel could use while patrolling the like. They want the government to give them the maximum security like any other taxpayers.
“Fishermen play a very pivotal role in the economy of this country and as such need protection like any other business people.”We are losing fishing gear worth millions of shilling to the pirates,” said a fisherman in Mbita who requested for his anonymity.
Ends