Kenya faces shortage of seafarers to navigate the fish and ships business of Lake Victoria

It is 4pm on Friday evening and Captain Charles Mnanga pensively shifts his glance from the deck of MV Wankyo to his watch and back again.
On board the cargo ship, there is a din of activity as the crew frantically loads hundreds of barrels of cooking oil into the vessel.

Mnanga and his crew are set to sail for the port of Mwanza in Tanzania and they need to complete loading the vessel and ship out in the next two hours.

By 6pm, all activity at the port will cease and the vessel will be forced to remain there for another night. The delay will mean extra charges, something he is not prepared for.

Around the 340 feet-long cargo ship are two similar vessels and a tug boat hoisting two tankers that are all being loaded with a similar air of urgency.

“We only have until sunset after which we will have to dismiss the labourers and the port will be closed for the day so if this ship is not out we shall have to delay our cargo and hence more costs.” he says.

Mnanga says apart from the operating costs of loading and offloading the cargo, the rush to do this in the least time possible is due to the uneven depth of the port.

“Most of the ports in Lake Victoria such as this one have become filled with silt and large vessels like ours cannot dock because they will get stuck once they are loaded,” he explains.

The vessels are forced to scramble for the few deep berths available and this often causes conflict.

On the deck of a smaller vessel some 300 metres away watching activities at the port is Francis Nyaundi. Mr Nyaundi is the assistant marine engineer for MV Uvumbuzi, a research vessel owned by the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, Kemfri.

The vessel is the only one that plies the waters of Lake Victoria and is hired by research facilities and universities in the region at a fee of Sh10, 000 per day.

According to Mr Nyaundi, the port of Kisumu, like most ports in the region, is in dire need of dredging to promote marine transport in the region, especially by owners of big vessels.

“We go across the lake to different ports in all the three countries to collect data but over the last few years it has become increasingly difficult to dock in most of the ports,” he says .

Mr Nyaundi’s ship MV Uvumbizi needs a depth of about four to five metres for it to dock safely but the water level at the Kisumu pier has gone down to about 0.7 metres deep.

The situation is even worse in the smaller ports like Usenge, Homa Bay and Mbita where a lot of research is conducted both in the water and on the coastline but accessing these places has become impossible.

The ship is well equipped with the latest of research and data collection equipment and when fully stocked, can house 12 people comfortably for up to 20 days on the lake without docking.

Since most of the ports are not deep enough however, the navigation of the research vessel is limited and its utility undermined. Mr Nyaundi has been a seafarer for the last 20 years, half of that in Mombasa before joining the crew of MV Uvumbuzi.

“The East Africa protocol has made things easier for us to navigate the lake because we do not need to restrict ourselves to rigid boundary lines when we are out,” he says.

“When we arrive on Ugandan waters for example, all we have to do is notify them we will be conducting research on a specific area and hoist both the Kenyan and Ugandan flag on the vessel”, he says.

This opening up of the borders however has presented another challenge for the region. A biting skills gap exists in many countries around the world and it is difficult to get professional seafarers and Kenya is no exception.

This situation in the country has further been worsened by the fact that there is an insufficient training system for experts to man Kenyan vessels on Lake Victoria and the Indian Ocean.

The Bandari College has for decades been the sole institution offering courses in seafaring and its monopoly has seen standards at the institution sink over the years.

The college, which is run by the Kenya Ports Authority, KPA struggles to keep up with emerging trends in marine technology. Until recently, Kenyans who wanted to train in marine technology and receive proper certification had to go to Tanzania.

This means that the labour market in the regional marine industry is dominated by Tanzanians leaving Kenyans who desire to enter the industry at a disadvantage.

Simon Kinywa, a Kenyan captain who is in charge of the 1500-tonne tag ship MT Harambee is bitter that the state of marine college education in Kenya derails locals from aggressively venturing into seafaring.

According to Cpt Kinywa, most ships that dock at the region’s ports are Tanzanian-owned and manned despite the great potential that exists in Kenya to create a strong base in the marine business.

“MT Harambee is a fairly young vessel compared to MV Wankyo and other Tanzanian ships”, Kinywa said. “Kenyans are left behind in the marine business hence they have shown little interests in ship ownership compared to their East African neighbours who own several ships that are in operation across East Africa.”

Mkombozi Fishing and Marine Transport Ltd (MFMT) is a Tanzanian company which dominates the cargo shipping trade on Lake Victoria and has the largest fleet in the region.

Increase

MV Wankyo is just one of the nine cargo ships in the company’s fleet that ferry goods across Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya.

Mnanga the ships operator said he has been operating the ship for close to 15 years now.

“Most Kenyan marine experts seek education abroad especially Tanzania where availability of this is made easier by the increase in the number of marine colleges”, said Mr Kinywa.Kenya marine experts are few since those who seek marine education from abroad do not come back after training.

Recently however, Kenyan universities have started offering marine courses and industry experts hope that the competition will spur the Bandari College out of its slumber.

The Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, JKUAT, last year announced that it will be offering maritime based courses in conjunction with the Kenya Maritime Authority, KMA.

In addition to this, the government has been working on the liberalisation of the Merchant Shipping Bill, so that Kenyan marine colleges can train students who can work in international waters.

These developments are expected to provide the local marine industry with the skilled labour force it much needs to grow and create more jobs. Another headache for the navigation of the lake has been the water hyacinth that invades the lake periodically prolonging navigation patterns and raising the cost of travel.

Mnanga of MV Wankyo says the vessel needs about 12, 000 litres of fuel to sail from the port of Kisumu to Mwanza, a 30-hour voyage.

“When we encounter the water hyacinth however we are slowed down and the time it takes to sail between the two ports increases by about six to 10 hours.

This means more fuel and extra hours for the deck workers who have to be compensated for the overtime.”

The 612-tonne cargo ship is manned by a crew of 15 men and women, but Mnanga says getting skilled labour is another challenge in the maritime industry especially for Kenyan vessels .