By: KATONGOLE ARNOLD
“The boat was carrying 34 people , the survivors are 9 and 20 people have been confirmed dead and 5 people are still missing, the accident was as a result of overloading. The police and UPDF marine teams are still on the waters to search for the missing people.” Comments of Patrick Onyango the Kampala Metropolitan Spokesperson.
The accident occurred when the boat was sailing from bukasa landing site to kasenyi landing site in katabi town council at about 5am. Joseph Lule one of the survivors of the accident laments that the boat stopped at Bukasa and it picked people with their luggage and at about 11:00pm Lule left home to board the boat and set off to Kasenyi. Lule emphasized that the boat was full to capacity and they had to offload some of the items, however it remained heavily loaded and in the middle of the journey, the boat was hit by a heavy storm and it started taking in water the sailor shouted we are in trouble and the boat capsized suddenly.
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In his narration, Lule affirmed that he and the other passengers that survived were putting on life Jackets. Lule, together with the members of public went further to ask government to waive taxes on water protective gears like life saving jackets, helmets among others to enable all citizens to find these equipment affordable for everyone to access as one of sustainable ways to curb death rates in cases of water accidents.
A good normal water life jacket for small sized people according to market survey ranges between 110,000ugx to 150,000ugx and all this is because of the high taxes imposed on these equipment. This is the third accident in a space of two months on L.Victoria, the first two accidents claimed five lives. In July the first boat was sailing from Kisaba to Katosi landing site and in the second accident the boat was sailing from Kisi landing site to Buusi Island and all the accidents are attributed to boat overloading.
The nature of increasing water accidents poses a question of how safely lives of people using water to travel should be protected throughout the entire country and who is incharge of ensuring this safety and who should be held accountable for failure and flaws of implementation in this sector.
