Early Breakfast withRelebogile Mabotja

The South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) announced that it has completed a preliminary inquiry into an incident where 68 passengers and crew had to be rescued from a sinking ferry that was travelling back to Cape Town from Robben Island.

Passengers were rescued by the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) back to Cape Town.

Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Tourism in the Western Cape, Beverly Schafer says the committee will have an urgent meeting to table the report and have further discussions and later make recommendations.

Schafer raised a few concerns with the report:

• There were five crew members instead of three as per insurance conditions.

• A passenger on board was injured and is being treated for hypothermia and chest infection but has never been compensated.

• Page 11 shows that incompetence was indicated. There was negligence in not taking the weather to account.

• There was no safety briefing conducted.

• There is no indication that they have made contact with any of the passengers.

• There was no passenger list.

The point is we are holding them to account, we are certainly going to make resolutions that we believe will take it further. This is only the beginning because at the end of the day we must ensure safety.

— Beverley Schafer, chair of the standing committee on economic development, tourism and agriculture in WC

The tourism sector is important not only for this province but for the country, so we need to make sure that safety is top of mind at all times.

— Beverley Schafer, chair of the standing committee on economic development, tourism and agriculture in WC

To hear the rest of the conversation with Beverly Schafer, listen here:

This article first appeared on CapeTalk : Samsa report on Robben Island ferry incident to be thoroughly analysed