NEW POLICY FOR INLAND WATER TRANSPORT (PAGE 38)

The Ministry of Transport is developing a policy framework to regulate all small vessels and canoes to bring sanity into transportation on the Volta Lake and other inland waterways.
The policy framework is also intended to create the platform for the ministry to provide security and protection to the marine environment against oil spillage and toxic dumping.
Mr Mike Hammah, the Minister of Transport, made this known in a speech read on his behalf at a workshop for inspectors, surveyors and marine engineers in Accra.
A technical co-operation agreement has already been signed between the Ministry of Transport and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to develop a regulatory framework.
Apart from the IMO-sponsored model safety regulations, there is no international treaty regime to cater for small ships and fishing vessels that operate on inland waterways.
Mr Hammah explained that the regulatory framework was partly designed to prevent the perennial loss of lives and property on the Volta Lake and inland waterways in the country because of the absence of a law to regulate the activities of small ships and canoe owners.
He said the assumption that surveyors of big ships could take up the inspection duties of those local crafts, in reality, did not work.
He said Ghana, described as the a pacesetter in maritime affairs in Africa, had adopted the IMO model safety regulations which were currently being incorporated into the national laws to enable the law to hold boat owners responsible for acts which endangered lives of people on the sea and inland waterways.
The minister said for a country such as Ghana which had more than 90 per cent of the tonnage of vessels made up of small fishing vessels, the training of surveyors and inspectors of non-convention ships could not be overemphasised.
He announced that a bill using the model regulations had already been prepared and national stakeholders workshops held on those models while the draft bill was being finalised by the Attorney-General’s Department.
Mr Hammah said the current series of workshops, therefore, were aimed at providing surveyors and inspectors of non-convention vessels with the necessary tools to implement the law when passed.
He explained that under the new law, drawings and plans of new crafts and vessels would have to be approved before construction could take place.
Mr Hammah stressed that vessels would be inspected during construction to ensure that they conformed to the standards as stipulated in the regulatory framework to reduce the spate of accidents and their resultant loss of lives and property on the sea.
The Director-General of the Ghana Maritime Authority, Mr I. P. Azuma, said technical regulations relating to surveys, stability, as well as safety of equipment, fire protection and operating vessels, occupational safety and pollution were some of the areas that would occupy the attention of the participants to make the waterways safe for passengers.