Islands Business - WE SAY: Biggest single maritime tragedy

‘One of the unfortunate realities in almost the entire developing world is the lack of adequate attention to public safety. It is almost as if the lives of the citizens of the developing world are at a discount. Poor knowledge of safety procedures, a woeful lack of trained personnel, lax attitudes towards accident prevention, topped by lack of funding—all stack up to greatly increase the risks the public has to take day in and day out in the course of undertaking their normal tasks’

The sinking of the Princess Ashika in Tongan waters on the midnight of August 5 claiming 87 lives including a number of women and children is one of the biggest single maritime tragedies the Pacific islands have witnessed in modern times.
The Royal Commission the Tongan Government has set up under the chairmanship of Tonga’s Supreme Court judge, Justice Warwick Andrew, will hopefully pinpoint the causes that led to the tragedy in its report expected towards the end of November. But initial reports based on statements of the vessel’s skipper and others have amply indicated it was a case of abject neglect of maritime safety routines.
In the interests of a thorough inquiry, the government has also asked for the assistance of New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission (NZTAIC) on the grounds that the Tongan maritime authorities had neither the technical expertise nor the financial resources necessary for conducting an in-depth inquiry.
The Tongan Government’s Transport Minister Paul Karalus resigned in the wake of the tragedy but denied he was admitting responsibility. He also maintained that according to his assessment, the Princess Ashika was seaworthy, contradicting the vessel’s surveyor who said it was not.
Buck passing—which started soon after the tragedy with the vessel’s skipper blaming the government and the Prime Minister himself pointing the finger at the skipper—is sure to continue until the report is out and even after that. But the fact remains that 87 invaluable lives were wantonly lost in a tragedy that most people now acknowledge as being completely avoidable. And this is to speak nothing of the deep and difficult to heal emotional scars that those who survived will have to live with for a long time to come.
One of the unfortunate realities in almost the entire developing world is the lack of adequate attention to public safety. It is almost as if the lives of the citizens of the developing world are at a discount. Poor knowledge of safety procedures, a woeful lack of trained personnel, lax attitudes towards accident prevention, topped by lack of funding—all stack up to greatly increase the risks the public has to take day in and day out in the course of undertaking their normal tasks. Be it while they are using public transport or even at the workplace.
Such lax attitudes only seek to encourage unscrupulous businesspeople to work in concert with corrupt bureaucrats to subvert whatever semblance of a system that is at work for personal gain while putting innocent lives at risk, as clearly happened if one traces the sequence of events that led to the sinking of the Princess Ashika.
Following its loss, maritime observers and experts have gone on record as regards the apparent poor condition of the vessel when it was moored in Fiji and while operating in its waters. The safety record of its previous Fiji-based owners has also been questioned having lost two other vessels in recent years, though those incidents were not as serious as the recent Tongan one in terms of loss of life.
Preliminary reports soon after the incident alluded to the fact that the Fiji company’s personnel who were sent to train their Tongan counterparts were sent back earlier than scheduled. Had they spent the requisite time, it is possible they would have got a better opportunity to familiarise the new crew with the vessel.
There is no doubt that there has been a chain of events that only points to the neglect of safety rules and procedures on the part of the ship’s owners, the maritime certification authorities in Tonga and the actual personnel who operated the ship that ultimately led to the unfortunate incident on August 5.
It was only a month after the vessel had arrived from Fiji—and in any case the vessel was a stop-gap one to be used until a new one arrived next year.
The temporary nature of the arrangement seems to have contributed to the laxness in following the required maintenance procedures on the vessel. The investigating authorities must determine if this was indeed one of the contributing factors.
The anger of the public—especially that of the near and dear ones of the hapless passengers who perished—directed at these people and the government is completely justified.
Their sense of disappointment and dismay has been worsened by the King’s decision to proceed with his planned holiday in Scotland where he was to take the salute with his brass band just two days after his country’s worst tragedy.
The hopes of the victims’ relatives will now be pinned on the Justice Andrew-led Royal Commission which is looking into all aspects that led to the unfortunate tragedy. The commission will be examining the evidence gathered by the New Zealand Government’s transport agency.
New Zealand’s Associate Transport Minister, Nathan Guy, said his government was formally supporting the Tongan Royal Commission’s inquiry into the sinking but that the legislative mandate only allowed it to determine the circumstances and causes of transport accidents to avoid reoccurrences and it would not be involved in apportioning blame or liability for the tragedy.
The responsibility of pinpointing the blame lies solely on the Royal Commission and it must bring the culprits to book no matter how well placed they may be.
Culpability must include all concerned who played a part by their neglect wilful or otherwise of the care and procedures that go towards ensuring safe travel for unsuspecting citizens who put their complete trust on them.
This would also be a good time to take up an audit of the seaworthiness of all passenger vessels not only in Tonga but the rest of the Pacific Islands as well, as these are the primary vehicles of transport in the islands countries helping people commute between islands.
As well as determining the cause of the Princess Ashika incident, the Royal Commission must recommend strict new procedures to prevent a recurrence.