OVERCROWDING, POOR safety checks and bad weather are being cited as the causes of the Joola ferry disaster off the coast of Senegal at the end of last month.

The sinking of the Joola, in which nearly 1,000 people died, is the worst ever shipping disaster either off the coast of Africa or within the continent's internal waterways.

The ship was built only 12 years ago by the German firm Neue Germersheimer Schiffswerft, who say it was approved for short sea journeys up to 50 nautical miles off the coast.

The managing director of the firm, Georg Hockels, told Lloyd's List that the German yard had not seen the ship since its delivery to Senegal, as the West African country had opted to undertake all maintenance and repair works on its own.

The state-owned ferry was on its way from Senegal's southern city of Ziguinchor to the capital Dakar when it was caught by fierce gusts of wind and rain and capsized.

It is currently grounded on a sandbank off the Gambian coast, although Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade wants the ship towed back to Ziguinchor.

It has now been revealed that amateur television footage showed it listing heavily to starboard before it left Ziguinchor on September 26.

The Joola was designed to carry just 550 passengers yet had nearly double that figure on board. Only 64 people survived the disaster.

The moment when the ship became dangerously unstable came when hundreds of passengers on the top deck rushed to the other side of the boat to avoid a strong gale, reports said.

The crew on the ship were said to have been taken by surprise when it started to capsize and were unable to release the safety equipment in time.

Lloyd's List said that, normally ships at sea are governed by IMO regulations but because it was a domestic voyage between the two Senegalese cities, it was not governed by the normal shipping rules.

Last year, the IMO issued a set of model safety regulations for Africa drawn up in the wake of the ferry mv Bukoba tragedy on Lake Victoria in 1996, which claimed over 500 lives. These rules cover crew training, seaworthiness safety equipment and critical limits on passenger numbers.

However, their adoption is voluntary and so far only 12 African countries, including most in East Africa and around the Great Lakes, have signed up. Others are Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile, the ongoing uncertainty over the Liberian ship registry, the second largest in the world, could be resolved this month after three top international accounting firms submitted bids to Monrovia to monitor its use of revenues from the shipping register.

According to Lloyd's List, the three firms – Ernst and Young, Deloitte Touche and KPMG International – were the three main bidders.

Crown Agents, which had been talked about as being among the possible auditors, was not amongst the bidders.

While the Liberian ships register itself, the Liberia International Ship and Corporate Registry, has been cleared of any improper behaviour involving its funds, it is the $18 million a year paid to Monrovia that has been the subject of UN criticism, resulting in sanctions being imposed on the West African country.

The UN accused the Liberian government of having broken UN embargoes by using the cash from its register to buy arms.

This followed a visit by a panel of experts to Liberia.

The West African government desperately needs the income from the ships registry, which is now one of its major foreign exchange earners as sanctions continue to be imposed on diamond sales.

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