Rehabilitation works for MV Pamba, Uganda’s cargo ferry that had broken down, are complete and it is scheduled to be flagged off later this month.

In July last year, the Ministry of Works and Transport officials inspected the rehabilitation works on MV Pamba, and the ministry then in a statement said works on the ferry were at 95%.

MV Pamba is one of the ferries that had been shipping cargo on Lake Victoria from Mwanza in Tanzania to Port Bell in Luzira, Kampala.

After a period of 16 years, Uganda on July 7 last year resumed shipping petroleum products from Mwanza to Port Bell, with a million litres of petroleum products brought in aboard MV Kaawa.

The petroleum products were shipped from Mwanza to Port Bell in Luzira, from where Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) wagons picked it en route to the final destinations.

MV Kaawa, MV Pamba and MV Kabalega were ferries operated by URC on Lake Victoria before they got mechanical problems.

The accident

In the early hours of May 8, 2005, MV Kaawa that was en route to Mwanza in Tanzania, was involved in a collision with MV Kabalega, which was en route to Port Bell.

MV Kaawa damaged her bow and Kabalega was damaged below the waterline. After the accident, MV Kaawa managed to return to Port Bell, but a few hours after the collision, MV Kabalega sank about eight (8) nautical miles (15km) southeast of the Ssese Islands.

URC's then chairman of the Board Governors, Paul Etiang (RIP), admitted that marine insurance for MV Kaawa, and MV Kabalega and their sister ferry MV Pamba had expired in December 2004, and that they had not been renewed.

After the collision, MV Kaawa was withdrawn from service for repairs to her bow and MV Pamba was suspended from service.

During the investigation, Stephen Kaliisa, one of the officers, who was watching MV Kaawa told Members of Parliament on a committee constituted to investigate the incident that the ferry had no navigation lights and one of her radars was missing.

The Maritime convention requires that ships passing each other in opposite directions should pass on each other's starboard side. However, Kaliisa also told the committee that MV Kaawa had lacked a starboard navigation light "for a long time".