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By: Edward Graham Sebbie
*Akosombo —* Two hundred young men and women in life jackets now stand as the new face of safety on Ghana’s inland waters as the Ghana Maritime Authority moves to end the cycle of deadly boat disasters.
The guards, inaugurated in Accra this week, have been deployed to 125 high-risk crossing points across 11 regions, with a simple but firm instruction: No Life Jacket, No Travel.
Their deployment is at the heart of the Authority’s aggressive expansion drive, which has seen its operational presence grow by nearly 70 percent in the last year.
Director-General Dr. Kamal-Deen Ali said the era where GMA only focused on the coast is over.
“We are going to where the accidents are. Where people cross every day to farm, to school, to market. That is where we must be present,” he said at the launch of the Life-Jacket for Safety and Livelihood Initiative.
For years, communities along the Volta Lake and other inland waterways have recorded fatal accidents often blamed on overloading, lack of life jackets and absence of regulation.
To reverse that, GMA has opened a dedicated Inland Water Safety Regulatory Office in Akosombo and is setting up new offices at Kete Krachi, Bamboi, Saboba, Wa, Agona, Ngalichie and Shama.
Dr. Ali disclosed that the Authority is also pushing to cover the entire eastern corridor from Ada to the Togo border, a stretch that has become a busy but risky water transport route.
“Our expansion in terms of locations has gone almost 70 percent beyond what we met when we assumed office,” he noted.
The guards are tasked not only to enforce safety rules but to educate boat operators and passengers, check overloading, and support rescue efforts.
Dr. Ali said the strategy is about saving livelihoods as much as enforcing the law, adding that the Authority is determined to make safety a culture on Ghana’s inland waters.
