Tendai Ruben Mbofana
When government spokesperson Nick Mangwana addressed the horrific sinking of the state-operated ferry Mbuya Nehanda on Lake Kariba, he offered a line of defense that was as revealing as it was deeply unsettling.
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Pushing back against citizens and critics who pointed directly to state neglect, structural oversight failures, and unmonitored overloading, his defense was stark: “If the government wasn’t doing well, the death toll would be worse.”
He uttered this reckless, insensitive remark when the casualty figures were still low.
Yet as the death toll has since soared to eighty-four, it stands as a damning exposure of his arrogance in the face of a harrowing tragedy.
It is little wonder, then, that the head of state never even bothered to visit the scene—a stark contrast to the standard practice expected in more civilized, accountable societies.
It is a statement that demands immediate, uncompromising accountability.
In what moral or administrative universe does a body count at eighty-four human lives not constitute a disaster of catastrophic proportions?
Let us keep in mind that the casualty count is now reaching ninety, the official capacity of the doomed ferry—leaving one to ask how Mangwana can possibly deny that the death toll is, in fact, worse.
As search and retrieval efforts continue, this grim casualty count will almost certainly rise.
To frame a death toll of this magnitude as evidence of effective state intervention—rather than an absolute indictment of institutional failure—is a profound insult to every grieving family standing on the shores of Lake Kariba waiting to bury their loved ones.
Will he finally admit to the government’s complete and catastrophic failure?
The premise of the authorities’ initial self-congratulation rests on the swift deployment of search, rescue, and sub-aqua teams.
But emergency retrieval operations, no matter how dedicated the individual divers and local fishermen in the water may be, are the absolute bare minimum expected of an organized state when tragedy strikes.
Flying in divers after a vessel has already flipped over into the deep is not evidence that the government is “doing well.”
It is evidence that the state failed at its most fundamental obligation: the duty of care and prevention.
The ferry in question was not a rogue, illicit private vessel operating in total secrecy.
It was a government-run craft operated under the Rural Infrastructure Development Agency.
It was a vital public lifeline carrying ordinary citizens who relied on state authority to guarantee safe, regulated transit across the water.
Yet, official accounts themselves confirm the vessel was allowed to set sail vastly overloaded, packed far beyond its safety capacity with an unmonitored headcount and lacking basic safety gear.
To make matters worse, this was an old boat that commenced operations in the 1980s—a dilapidated vessel that should have already been at the scrap yard rather than operating without strict enforcement of passenger limits.
The ticketless exemption for young children and infants meant there was not even a proper manifest—a failure that rendered human beings invisible before the boat even left the dock.
To boast that state response prevented a higher death toll is to drag the standard of governance down into the gutter.
Governance is not measured by how efficiently you collect bodies from a preventable wreckage; it is measured by the standards, safety inspections, and maintenance enforced so that the vessel never sinks in the first place.
When a public agency allows a dilapidated, overcrowded boat onto choppy waters, the state is not the heroic savior when it capsizes—it is the author of the tragedy.
What does it say about the official mindset when the benchmark for success is simply that more people didn’t drown?
If eighty-four men, women, and children dying in the waters of Lake Kariba is considered a job well done, then the standard of public accountability has completely collapsed.
We cannot allow public relations spin to transform a devastating regulatory failure into a narrative of operational success.
The disaster on Lake Kariba was entirely preventable.
Eighty-four lives are gone, with more bodies expected, wiped away on what should have been a routine public transit journey. Mr. Mangwana, the death toll is not just “worse”—it is an absolute national tragedy.
No amount of official spin will ever change that reality.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com