As Rwanda National Police (RNP) sets out to embark on extensive public awareness campaigns, its ‘Marine Unit’ plans to reach out to a wider audience in ensuring security in and around water bodies.
In an interview with Marine Commanding Officer, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Alphonse Businge, he said that although 2016 will not only be characterized by ensuring more security within the water bodies, the unit will conduct extensive public outreach awareness.
“Part of our targeted audience are those who who deal in water transport; we want to encourage them have insurance, water transport authorization, and also ensure they are always equipped with life jackets among other standards,” said SSP Businge.
He added that beside the transporters, the force intends to encourage the public to take part in the fight against smuggling done through water bodies.
“We will be telling them the effects of smuggling; indeed smuggling severely harms the economy in a multidimensional ways. It undermines the local industry, discourages legal businesses and reduces the volume of revenues collected since smugglers evade taxes, but is also likely to bring it illicit products, we want to educate the public about this,” he said.
As part of RNP’s environmental policing, SSP Businge said that 2016 will be marked with campaigns against all illegal activities around water bodies especially illegal fishing.
“We want to ensure that every fisherman has a life jacket with him whenever they are fishing because sometimes strong waves come abruptly so we want to ensure their security in case of such eventualities, but also using standard and authorised fishing nets,” said the commanding officer.
He added that, there have been cases of illegal fishing, although some of the people involved, he said, were arrested.
“Normally fishermen are required to have standards of fishing that ensure the kind and size of the mesh depending to the average age or size of the fish they want to catch, where and how to fish without affecting the fish. However there are some people who conduct illegal fishing, normally when we get them we teach them, show them how better and legal ways to do this business,”
He added that; “we want to reach out to as many fishermen in this coming year to educate them against illegal fishing.”
With regards to operations, Businge said that during the festive period, the marine unit deployed heavily around beaches in Rubavu and Karongi to ensure no cases of drowning reported.
“We didn’t have any case of drowning during the Christmas period around those area but we are still fully deployed and standby even after the New Year’s Day,” he said.
The marine unit was established in 2005 with 35 qualified personnel but the number has since increased by numerous folds operating the seven marine posts all over the country, with its headquarters in Mushonyi Sector, Rutsiro District.
These posts have qualified marine officers with modern equipment charged with ensuring security and safety on Rwanda’s 17 inland lakes and three others shared with neighboring countries, as well as ensuring that these water bodies are utilized in a sustainable manner in accordance with national laws.
Common illegal activities on lakes, he said, include illegal fishing or use of unspecified nets, smuggling and drug trafficking, which at times result into drowning.
Leave a Reply