Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City
The East African Community has envisaged an ambitious plan of installing communications ring around Lake Victoria aim at improving the response time those under distress and need to be rescued.
The visiting Secretary General of the EAC Ambassador Juma V Mwapachu disclosed here that the planned Maritime Rescue Coordination Center will provide the capacity to process distress calls and coordinate search and rescue activities in Lake Victoria.
“In case of a hazard situation, those in distress will call the nearest ship or canoe, which will then trace the area for rescue,” Mwapachu said.
The Center will be supported by mobile telecommunications companies Zain and Erickson of Sweden.
The equipment, which comprises fully tested computerized software is already in Entebbe, Uganda and will be soon moved to the Tanzanian lakeside town of Mwanza where the earmarked Center’s office will be located.
The Tanzanian government has already given promised for the office facilities before an intended office for the center is constructed in the same town.
“The mobile phone companies have erected towers in the greater part of the lake to be accessible for mobile phone operations.”
The EAC Chief who led a team of top official and experts from the organization’s headquarters in Arusha,Tanzania to Kisumu arrived on Tuesday evening by road. He had earlier addressed members of the public on both sides of the Sirare border point separating Kenya and Tanzania before driving on into Kisumu for a two days of busy schedule visit.
The Secretary General said most of the accident that occur involved the over 500,000 fishermen who operate on the lake within the three countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda which shared the Victoria waters.
This disclosure comes a week after 18 Tanzania children drowned when the allegedly overloaded boat capsized.
Last month, over 50 people died after their boat capsized on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria.”Some of these tragedies occur because each country has its own rescuing system which is not well organized and lacked proper systems and institutions to manage search and rescue operation,” said Ambassador Mwapachu.
The new move will make the ships and small boats operating in the lake to be safe and secure,” he added.
EAC also has research vessels that navigate the lake to establish where ships operate without any hitch. No navigation of the lake has been done since 1902 to establish the efficiency of transport in the lake.
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leooderaomolo@yahoo.com