Pachena
RIDA’s own probe stopped at lower-level officials. Justice Mafusire’s board has the power to climb higher, all the way to the warnings the agency ignored
By Brenna Matendere
Transport Minister Felix Mhona has appointed Supreme Court judge Justice Joseph Mafusire to lead a commission of inquiry into the sinking of the Mbuya Nehanda ferry, which killed 97 people on Lake Kariba almost two months ago on 11 August.
The appointment, published in the Government Gazette on 2 October, honours a promise Cabinet made in the days after Zimbabwe’s deadliest transport disaster. It also opens the door to a question the ferry’s operator, the state-owned Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (RIDA), has so far avoided.
Was the vessel fit to sail at all?
RIDA’s probe stopped at the bottom
The Mhona-appointed inquiry comes hot on the heels of an internal RIDA investigation commissioned by director general Christopher Shumba which attributed to the August 11 tragedy to two things: overloading and bad weather.
The RIDA investigation committee was chaired by LearnsonTagara, chief director of human resources in the Ministry of Local Government. Its other members were Dr WadzanayiKachere, chief director of presidential scholarships in the Office of the President and Cabinet, and Patricia Mafusire, director of finance in the Ministry of Youth.
The probe led to the dismissal of Artwell Madapandu, RIDA’s Kariba district accountant. A disciplinary committee found he had failed to put in place controls that could have stopped the ferry being overloaded, as Pachena reported in Heads Roll at RIDA over Kariba Ferry Disaster Which Claimed 97 Lives (https://pachena.online/heads-roll-at-rida-over-kariba-ferry-disaster-which-claimed-97-lives/ ).
On the probe’s recommendation, two more officials face misconduct hearings. They are district coordinator Ignatius Chiome, the head of station, and Jimmy Walter Gombarashama, the ferry’s second captain, who issued tickets that day.
But the investigators never looked up the chain. Shumba appointed them and signed Madapandu’s dismissal, yet his conduct was never examined. Nor was the ferry’s seaworthiness.
Pachena’s investigation, The Warnings Zimbabwe Ignored: How the Mbuya Nehanda Sank, Killing 97(https://pachena.online/the-warnings-zimbabwe-ignored-how-the-mbuya-nehanda-sank-killing-97/) , revealed that engineers who serviced the ferry had repeatedly warned the Lake Captain and RIDA that it needed structural work, including two extra pontoons, to improve its stability.
Those warnings were disclosed at a closed-door meeting attended by Mhona on 16 August, five days after the disaster. Shumba later dismissed the engineers’ advice as “speculation” and insisted the ferry was seaworthy.
What the Mafusire Commission must answer
The four-member commission will sit for three months, with an option to extend by one month. It may sit in public or in private, and will report to Mhona.
It must establish the nature, circumstances and causes of the sinking. It must examine the vessel’s registration, certification, fitness and safety compliance.
It will assess the competence of everyone involved in buying, owning and operating the ferry, and of the wider shipping chain, including weather controls.
It must also establish how much cargo and how many people were on board, and compare the passenger manifest with the true number. It will judge whether proper procedures were followed before, during and after the voyage, including search and rescue.
Finally, it will review the laws and institutions governing inland shipping and recommend reforms. A catch-all clause allows it to probe any other matter it considers relevant.
Do the terms match the warnings?
On paper, the terms track most of what Pachena exposed.
The manifest clause speaks to our finding that tickets for children on the final voyage were left blank. The loading clause addresses evidence that at least 174 people were aboard a vessel marked “50 PAX”. Its capacity had been cut from 95 after a near-capsize in December 2024.
The fitness clause opens the way to the engineers’ ignored warnings. The weather clause covers the Lake Captain’s advice to operators to stay off the lake.
The search-and-rescue clause takes in survivors’ accounts of scarce life jackets and no safety briefings. It also covers RIDA’s refusal to provide a tender boat, despite a plea from Kariba MP Shine Gwangwaba in January. A crew member and survivors told RIDA’s own investigators that one would have saved more lives.
Yet the terms stop short of naming the warnings, or asking who received them and what they did. Whether the board follows that paper trail upward, including to the ministry that government says cleared the ferry for service in June, will be its real test.
Nor is the board required to make its findings public.
Who sits on the board
Justice Mafusire was elevated to the Supreme Court from the High Court.
Dr Wiklef Makamache is a Commissioner in the Zimbabwe Republic Police. He once commanded police in Bulawayo and previously served as the force’s finance director.
Patronella Musarurwa is a lawyer in private practice with more than 20 years in the legal profession, and a councillor of the Law Society of Zimbabwe. She sits on several boards, including ZB Holdings, Great Zimbabwe University, ZIMSEC and the Health Professions Authority of Zimbabwe.
Transport permanent secretary Engineer Joy Makumbe is secretary to the board. The ministry oversees the Lake Captain and the Director of Inland Waters Control, both central to the events Pachena uncovered. None of the board’s members has a maritime or marine engineering background.
