The District Chief Executive of Biakoye in the Volta region, Louis Nana Akatta has attributed the persistent accidents on the Volta Lake to poor supervision by the Ghana Maritime Authority. According to Nana Akatta, the Maritime Authority is shirking its responsibility of ensuring that travelers who board boats on the lake are well protected. He noted that reports indicate that passengers who board boats on the lake usually do not wear life jackets given them as protective clothing. He alleged however, that others put on the jackets intentionally at embarkation but remove them immediately the journey begins or even in the middle of the journey with the excuse that the life jackets absorbs a lot of heat. The Biakoye DCE said “if the Maritime Authority knew all these things and failed to address them, then they should rather be blamed for the rampant Volta Lake accidents”. “The preventive mechanisms to ensure that there are no accidents on the lake by the Maritime Authority are woefully inadequate so they should do more or more lives would be lost," he added. Nana Akatta charged the Ghana Maritime Authority to equip their personnel in the area in order to patrol the river regularly to check indiscipline exhibited by travelers such as the removal of the life jackets to forestall future occurrences. The DCE called for a non-partisan approach to solving the problem which he said is gradually becoming a canker. He flayed the boat owners association at Tapa-Abotoase for what he described as negligence in ensuring that travelers are protected with the life jackets. Nana Akatta warned that drastic measures would be put in place to ensure that passengers who do not wear their protective jackets are sanctioned. He said these at a ceremony to present three thousand pieces of life jackets to Tapa-Abotoase and surrounding areas by Zoil, a subsidiary of Zoomlion Ghana Limited. Nana Akatta assured the people that his outfit will supply new boats to replace weak ones which ply the Volta Lake. Meanwhile chairman of the Boat Owners Association at Tapa-Abotoase, Mr. Kwaku Botwe has blamed the media for spewing out falsehood about the number of deaths concerning the recent boat accident on the Volta Lake. He disclosed that so far the number of bodies retrieved is only twenty-six (26) while the accident boat also drowned. In a related development residents in the area say they feel threatened by last Tuesday’s accident. Residents told Asempa News that accidents on the Volta Lake are not new, however the recent one was terrible.